
Cfass 

Book^:_ 



COPYRIGHT DEP0S17 



ALASKA, 



ALASKA 



Its History, Climate 



NATURAL RESOURCES 



/ 

V 

Hon. a. p. Swineford, 

Ex-Governor of Alaska. 



WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: --— 

RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, 

PUBLISHERS. 



2ndCO?V, 



3029 



Copyright, 1898, by Rand, McNally & Co. 



/<^o^ 



0\-\5bfO 



PREFACE. 

The brief history of the discovery and occupa- 
tion of Alaska by the ^Russians, which I have inr 
corporated in this work, has been compiled 
largely from the records of the Russian- Ameri- 
can Company, as translated for me by Mr. 
George Kostrometinoff. That part relating to 
the purchase of the country by the United States 
are matters of Congressional record, which the 
reader can easily verify by referring to the de- 
bates had in the Senate and House of Represent- 
atives, 1867-8. The remainder, and by far the 
larger part of the volume, is based upon personal 
observation and research, made during an official 
residence of several years in the Territory, during 
which time I personally visited all the different 
sections referred to for the special purpose of in- 
vestigation and report. Concerning my estimate 
of the natural resources of these different sec- 
tions, I am wholly content to await the confirma- 
tion that certainly lies within the near future. 

It is just possible that the reader may be dis- 
appointed at not finding in these pages a more 
extended reference to the very recent gold dis- 
coveries which have set the world aflame, but I 



6 PREFACE. 

consider these, for the present at least, subjects 
more legitimately belonging to the newspapers 
than to the historian. What might be written of 
the new discoveries, new towns and different 
routes of travel and transportation to the interior 
to-day might not be true to-morrow, and I have 
therefore tried to avoid any statement which, 
though justified by existing conditions, may be 
found inaccurate, if not wholly wrong, a year or 
two hence. In other words, I have not attempted 
that which the daily press may be confidently 
relied upon to perform, or which can more prop- 
erly be given to the public through the medium 
of publications in which corrections can more 
readily be made than in such a volume as this. 

It will be noticed that I have explained in a 
footnote the use of the word Creole, as applied 
to a particular class of native-born Alaskans. 
There are, in fact, no people in Alaska who can 
properly be called Creoles, but inasmuch as the 
appellation is one which has heretofore been 
quite generally applied to those of the Alaska 
people who are descended from Russian fathers 
and native mothers, I have not deemed it wholly 
improper to continue its use in preference to 
adopting some other term which might grate 
harshly upon the sensibilities of the people to 
whom it refers. 

A. P. S. 



ALASKA: 



ITS 

HISTORY, CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 



CHAPTER I. 
INTRODUCTORY. 

When, early in 1867, it became publicly known 
that the Hon. William H. Seward, the then Sec- 
retary of State, had negotiated a treaty by the 
terms of which Russia had agreed to cede to the 
United States her North American possessions 
for and in consideration of the payment of seven 
million two hundred thousand dollars in gold 
coin, the proposition not only failed to elicit any 
considerable manifestation of popular favor, but 
was quite generally condemned and denounced 
as a reckless and wholly indefensible expenditure 
of the public money in the purchase of what 
some of the leading political journals of the day 



m 



8 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

denominated a "great national refrigerator." 
Many of the more influential newspapers ear- 
nestly opposed a ratification of the treaty by the 
Senate, but after a somewhat protracted debate, 
in which the Hon. Chas. Sumner took a leading 
part, it was finally ratified by that body May 28, 
the original agreement between the high con- 
tracting parties having been signed March 30, 
1867. In the House of Representatives the ap- 
propriation necessary to the final consummation 
of the treaty was strenuously opposed by a num- 
ber of the leading and most influential members 
of that body, chief among them the Hon. C. C. 
Washburn, of Wisconsin, who regarded the pur- 
chase in the light of a most unwarranted and un- 
justifiable waste of the public funds^ in that he 
held the territory proposed to be purchased of 
little, if any, value, and one which in addition to 
the original cost was likely to prove a source of 
continual large expense to the government 
without adequate consideration in the way 
of revenues to be derived therefrom. Not- 
withstanding the carefully considered speech 
of Mr. Sumner in the Senate, in which he not 
only truthfully enumerated the great natural re- 
sources of the territory and dwelt at length upon 
the importance of the proposed acquisition from 
a political as well as commercial and industrial 
standpoint, Mr. Washburn entertained and held 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 9 

tenaciously to the preconceived notion which has 
ever since, or at least until quite recently, been 
the prevailing though erroneous opinion of a 
vast majority of the people of the United States, 
that Alaska was, and is, a barren, desolate region 
of perpetual snow and ice, where nothing in the 
shape of agricultural or horticultural products 
can be grown, and in which the most useful of 
domestic animals can not be kept. To Mr. 
Washburn and those who joined with him in his 
opposition to the consummation of the treaty 
of cession, Alaska was a great terra incognita, 
and such it still remains to the great mass of the 
American people, who have either been unable 
or have made no effort to divest themselves of 
a preconceived idea, nurtured in widespread ig- 
norance of the subject to which it relates. 

It has always been a mooted question why, on 
the one hand, Russia was willing to accept so 
small a consideration for the cession of her North 
American possessions to the United States, and, 
on the other hand, what the incentive that 
prompted the latter to conclude the purchase. 
It was believed, and was probably true, that the 
imperial government feared that, in the event of 
a war with Great Britain, Alaska would fall an 
easy prey to that aggrandizing power, or at least 
could only be successfully defended through the 
instrumentality of an immense naval armament 



10 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

provided at tremendous cost to the imperial 
treasury. It was but natural that Great Britain 
should desire to possess herself of so vast a ter- 
ritory contiguous to her American colonies, and 
that she was patiently awaiting to seize upon 
Alaska admits of scarcely a doubt. On the other 
hand, it has been urged, and is still quite gener- 
ally believed, that the government of the United 
States was prompted solely by feelings of grati- 
tude because of the friendly attitude maintained 
by Russia towards this country during the great 
civil war but then just ended, to relieve the Czar 
of his white elephant in America upon almost 
any terms he might be pleased to dictate. Others 
ascribed the purchase to the political sagacity 
and wise statesmanship of Mr. Seward, and that 
view of the matter is undoubtedly the true one, 
though the project did not originate in the brain 
of that great statesman. To him, however, is 
due the credit of having added to the national 
domain a vast region, the incomparable natural 
resources of which are as yet in the incipiency 
of their development. 

Prior to the convention which resulted in the 
cession of Alaska to the United States, the mat- 
ter had been agitated by Senator Gwinn, of Cal- 
ifornia, in the interest of certain shrewd, ener- 
getic business men of San Francisco, who after- 
wards proved to be the moving spirit behind Mr. 



1 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. H 

Seward in his negotiations, though it is proper to 
say that that gentleman was wholly unaware of 
the fact, and was prompted by none save the 
most unselfish and patriotic motives. The glory 
and peaceful aggrandizement of his country was 
his sole aim and object; self-aggrandizement was 
the hope and purpose of those who, having sug- 
gested the purchase, kept well under cover until, 
the treaty having been ratified by the Senate and 
proclaimed by the President, they came at once 
to the front and were most lavish of their means 
in a successful effort to secure from the House of 
Representatives the appropriation necessary to 
carry it into effect. It is a fact, not generally re- 
membered after the lapse of nearly thirty years, 
that though the treaty of cession was signed on 
the 30th of March, 1867, ratified by the Senate 
May 28th, proclaimed by the President June 
20th, and formal and actual possession of the 
country taken October i8th of the same year, 
payment of the purchase price of $7,200,000 was 
delayed for nearly a year thereafter, owing to the 
failure of the House of Representatives to make 
the necessary appropriation. The appropriation 
was strenuously opposed by Messrs. C. C. and 
E. B. Washburn, Blaine, Logan, Cullom, Butler, 
Delano, Morrell and other prominent leaders of 
the party then dominant in Congress, and many 
members who voted for it did so under protest, 



12 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

alleging that the prerogative of Congress had 
been usurped by the President and Senate in 
negotiating and proclaiming a treaty without 
question as to the action of the House in the 
matter of providing the means to carry it into 
effect. 

Mr. Banks, of Masachusetts, Chairman of the 
Committee on Foreign Relations, led the debate 
in favor of the appropriation, and in a glowing 
speech described the country as one possessed 
of great and practically inexhaustible natural re- 
sources, though it must be confessed that when 
pressed for the authority upon which he based 
a statement so altogether extravagant, he could 
only reply that he was "not bound to rely exclu- 
sively upon the testimony of men," and other 
proofs he had none that were not vague and 
better calculated to weaken than add strength 
to his argument. On the other hand, Mr. Wash- 
burn advanced five propositions as the basis of 
his argument against the appropriation, the 
fourth and principal one being "that the country 
is absolutely without value," and in his closing 
speech characterized the treaty as "an outrage 
on the rights of the American people." He de- 
fied "any living man on the face of the earth to 
produce any evidence that an ounce of gold was 
ever extracted from the Territory of Alaska," 
and was not "compelled to go out hunting, for 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 13 

adventures from which to manufacture testi- 
mony to prove that Alaska is a vile country; no, 
sir, I quote official documents." It is to be, re- 
gretted that Mr. Washburn did not live long 
enough to discover his error and to know, as he 
now would if living, that a single mine, embrac- 
ing barely forty acres in that "vile country," 
has paid to its owners more gold coin than was 
embraced in the appropriation bill he so vigor- 
ously and persistently opposed. 

Whether or not the men who were instru- 
mental, through the means of a strong and influ- 
ential lobby, in securing the favorable action of 
Congress profited largely by the purchase may 
be inferred from the fact that they were the 
original incorporators of a powerful corporation 
which is still in existence, and carrying on an ex- 
tensive business in Alaska, and which for a pe- 
riod of more than twenty years subsequent to 
the transfer was almost as completely and abso- 
lutely the owner of all that part of the territory 
it cared to occupy as it could possibly have been 
if possessed of the title in fee simple. 






14 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY. 



CHAPTER II. 

BOUNDARIES AND SUPERFICIAL AREA. 

The boundaries of Alaska as defined by the 
treaty of cession are: Commencing from the 
southernmost point of the island called Prince of 
Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of 
54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, and be- 
tween the 131st and 133rd degree of west longi- 
tude (meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall 
ascend to the north along the channel called 
Portland Channel as far as the point of the con- 
tinent where it strikes the 56th degree of north 
latitude; from this last mentioned point the line 
of demarkation shall follow the summit of the 
mountains situate parallel to the coast as far as 
the point of intersection of the 141st degree of 
west longitude (of the same meridian) ; and final- 
ly, from the said point of intersection, the said 
meridian line of the 141st degree, in its prolonga- 
tion as far as the frozen ocean (Arctic), which 
constitutes the northern boundary. The treaty 
declared it as being understood that the Prince of 
Wales Island should belong wholly to the United 
States, and that whenever the summit of the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 15 

mountains, which extend in a direction parallel 
to the coast from the 56th degree of north lati- 
tude to the point of intersection of the 141st de- 
gree of west longitude, shall prove to be at a 
distance of more than ten marine leagues from 
the ocean, the limit between the British posses- 
sions and the line of coast which is to belong 
to the United States shall be formed by a line 
parallel to the winding of the coast, which shall 
never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues 
therefrom. 

The western boundary passes through a point 
in Bering Strait on the parallel of 65 degrees 
30 minutes north latitude, at its intersection by 
the meridian which passes midway between the 
islands of Kruzenstern, 01^ Ignalook, and the 
Island of Ratzmanoff, or Noonarbook, and pro- 
ceeds due north, without limitation, into the 
Frozen Ocean. The same western limit, begin- 
ning at the same initial point, proceeds thence in 
a course nearly southwest through Bering Strait 
and Bering Sea, so as to pass midway between 
the northwest point of the Island of St. Law- 
rence and the southeast point of Cape Choukot- 
ski, to the meridian of 172 west longitude; 
thence, from the intersection of that meridian, 
in a southwesterly direction, so as to pass mid- 
way between the Island of Attn and the Copper 
Island of the Kormandorski couplet or group in 



16 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY. 



the North Pacific Ocean, to the meridian of 193 
degrees west longitude, so as to include in the 
territory surveyed the whole of the Aleutian 
Islands east of that meridian. 

The superficial area of the territory is gener- 
ally, and erroneously, stated at 577,390 square 
miles, or less. These figures are based on com- 
putations made at or about the time of the trans- 
fer of the country to the United States, when 
Fort Yukon, occupied by the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, was believed to be within the western 
boundary of the British Northwest Territory, 
and have never since been changed by the com- 
pilers of school geographies and encyclopedias. 
Fort Yukon is at the mouth of the Porcupine 
River, on about the 147th meridian of longitude, 
and the mistake in computation of area is due to 
the fact that it was made before the 141st merid- 
ian, which constitutes the boundary line, had 
been definitely determined. In 1869 a party of 
engineers sent out by the War Department, 
ascertained, by astronomical observation, that 
Fort Yukon was within United States territory, 
and the Hudson Bay Company, under threat or 
fear of compulsion, vacated that post and re- 
moved to a point on the Porcupine River be- 
lieved to be within British jurisdiction, and which 
is designated on the later maps as Rampart 
House. Here the post remained until 1890, 



'\ 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 17 

when Mr. J. H. Turner, of the United States 
Coast Survey, found it to be still twenty miles 
west of the boundary, and the following year it 
was moved up the river just far enough to place 
it within British territory. Thus the strip of ter- 
ritory lying between the 141st and 147th merid- 
ians, and extending over ten degrees of latitude, 
would appear not to have been taken into con- 
sideration when the computation of area as now 
generally stated and accepted without question 
was made. It is believed that a final careful and 
correct computation will show the total super- 
ficial area of Alaska to be nearly, if not quite, 
800,000 square miles. 



18 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



CHAPTER III. 

Vitus Bering — Voyages of Discovery 1728-1741 — Chiri- 
koff's Disastrous Visit to Cross Sound — Wreck of the 
St. Peter and Death of Bering — First Russian Colony, 
1784 — Spanish Expeditions, 1775-9 — Cook Explores 
Coast 1779 — Alexander Baranoff, First Russian Gov- 
ernor 1790 — First Ship Built in Prince William Sound, 
1794 — Agriculturists and Priests Sent Out Same Year 
— Russian-American Company Given Exclusive Con- 
trol, 1779. 

ThoMugh America was discovered in 1492, it 
was not till 1749 that Alaska was opened to set- 
tlement even to all the subjects of the govern- 
ment which claimed ownership thereof by right 
of discovery and subsequent conquest. Prior to 
the summer of 1741 no white man was ever 
known to have landed upon its coast, and then 
many years elapsed before the first permanent 
settlement was effected. For more than half a 
century after discovery no effort was made at 
colonization, nor indeed did Russia lay formal 
claim to the territory till about the year 1788, 
some forty years or more subsequent to the date 
of original discovery. In the meantime, how- 
ever, the islands and mainland were visited by 
many lawless Russian adventurers, in search of 
valuable furs, by whom the at first peaceably in- 



I 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 19 

dined natives were massacred and plundered to 
such an extent as to provoke at their hands many- 
bloody, but justifiable, reprisals, when subse- 
quently the permanent occupation of the country 
was begun under sanction of imperial authority. 

In 1725, after the conquest of Kamtchatka, 
and while the effort to reduce the Tchukchees of 
northeastern Siberia was still in progress, Peter 
the Great, in his zeal for scientific exploration, 
and no doubt prompted by a desire to extend the 
dominion of the Empire which he had already 
created, planned a great expedition, the instruc- 
tions for the carrying out of which he dre\j^ with 
his own hand. This expedition had for its object 
the exploration of the seas adjacent to his newly 
acquired Asiatic possessions; but before any 
preparation had been made to carry out his in- 
structions, the great Czar died, leaving the ex- 
ecution of his plans to his widow, who succeeded 
him on the throne. The latter, imbued with the 
same spirit which had animated her illustrious 
husband and predecessor, ordered the immedi- 
ate execution of the plans devised by him, and 
appointed the afterwards illustrious Captain 
Vitus Bering leader and commander of the ex- 
pedition. 

The party organized by Bering set out from 
St. Petersburg on the 5th of February, and by 
slow, tedious and laborious stages made its way 



20 • ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

to Okhotsk, where they buih two ships — the 
Fortuna and the Gabriel — in which they set sail 
on their unknown and adventurous voyage, July 
20, 1728. The voyage was without special inci- 
dent or adventure, and wholly barren of discov- 
ery, though the ships passed through Bering 
Strait into the Arctic Ocean. In truth, neither 
Bering nor his navigator was aware of having 
passed through waters across which the vision 
can unaided almost, if not quite, scan the shores 
of one continent from those of another; and the 
fact that they saw neither the American coast or 
even the Diomede Islands, is pretty conclusive 
proof that they did not venture far from the 
Asiatic coast in this their first voyage of discov- 
ery. 

A second voyage made by the same party and 
under the same auspices, in 1729, was equally 
barren of results, and the next year Bering re- 
turned to St. Petersburg without having accom- 
plished anything whatever in the way of discov- 
ery. Here, notwithstanding his failure, he was 
received with great honor by his Imperial mis- 
tress, and rewarded with a promotion he cannot 
be said to have fairly earned, and preparations 
were at once begun and pressed to a speedy con- 
clusion for another expedition under his com- 
mand. 

It was not till 1741, however, that he em- 



I 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 21 

barked on the voyage the results of which made 
his name immortal. For several years he had 
been engaged in exploring the coast of Siberia, 
making an occasional voyage to Japan, and had 
founded the town of Petropaulovsky, so named 
for his two vessels the St. Peter and the St. Paul, 
in which, June 4th of the year named, he sailed 
from Avatcha on his last voyage, which was 
scarcely more prolific in discoveries than were 
his former barren and unprofitable expeditions^ ^-j ^^. 
With him went Wilhelm Stetter andTLouis de "^ ^^^^ 
Lisle de la Croyere, the first a Franconian natu- 
ralist, and the latter a French astronomer, both 
eminent scientists of the age in which they lived. 
On June 20th the vessels were parted by a 
storm, and never again sighted each other; in 
fact, their commanders never met again. The 
St. Paul, commanded by Chirikoff, reached the 
American coast on the 17th of July, and an- 
chored in what is now known as Cross Sound. 
Here the commander sent his mate and ten men, 
all armed, ashore, for the purpose of obtaining 
a supply of fresh water, and when, on the 21st, 
they had not returned, the second mate with 
other armed men were sent to search for them 
in the only remaining boat. Neither did the sec- 
ond party return, but the next day two large 
canoes crowded with natives came out towards 
the ship, with every indication of hostile intent, 



22 



ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



but did not venture an attack or approach with- 
in range of the small arms with which the crew 
were provided. Having no more boats with 
which to effect a landing, Chirikoff was power- 
less so far as attempting a rescue was concerned, 
and on the 27th weighed anchor and set sail for 
Petropaulovsky, leaving the unfortunate men to 
their fate. He sighted numerous islands on his 
way back, undoubtedly those of the Aleutian 
chain, and on the 9th of October re-entered the 
harbor whence he had sailed, having lost twenty- 
one of his less than a hundred men, among them 
both of his Lieutenants and de la Croyere, the 
last of whom died of scurvy the last day of the 
voyage. 

The chronicler of the voyage relates that Be- 
ring in the St. Peter was driven blindly through 
fog and tempestuous seas till, on the i8th of July 
he found himself in calm water near shore at 
the foot of a low, desolate bluff, beyond which 
was a range of towering mountains, probably the 
St. Elias Alps. Here he remained only six hours, 
not permitting any of his people to go ashore, 
and then sailed westward, into Prince William 
Sound, where he refitted his ship, took on a sup- 
ply of fresh water, and then sailed through what 
has since been named Shelikoff Strait, on the west 
side of Kadiak Island, to the Shumagin group, so 
named in honor of one of his crew, who, having 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 23 

died at sea, was buried there. In the meantime, 
Bering, being afflicted with scurvy, had surren- 
dered the command to his Lieutenant, Waxel. 
Soon after leaving Shumagin Island a terrific 
storm drove the ship far out to sea, and for 
weeks all on board, many of whom were suffer- 
ing with the disease which had prostrated the 
commander, endured almost incredible hard- 
ships. The supply of water and provisions in the 
meantime ran short, and the men became so 
weakened by hunger and disease that they were 
unable to manage or direct the course of the ship, 
which for weeks drifted helplessly under bare 
poles, first in one direction and then in another, 
until on the 4th of November a yet more vio- 
lent gale drove them ashore on an unknown and 
uninhabited coast. The vessel was completely 
wrecked, but those on board succeeded in saving 
themselves and a few articles which were after- 
wards found indispensable to their final escape. 
Pits were dug in the sand and partially covered 
with parts of the sails secured from the wreck, 
and in one of these, on the 8th of December, Be- 
ring breathed his last. They had been cast 
ashore on one of the islands of the Commander 
Group, so named by Waxel in honor of his com- 
mander, while at the same time he gave the name 
of Bering to the island on which he died. Here 
they remained all winter, subsisting at first on 



Ai^/vv«-'*^^ilU 



24 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

the carcass of a whale which had been cast ashore, 
and subsequently on the flesh of sea-otters, a 
considerable number of which they succeeded in 
taking, with occasionally a sea-cow, an animal 
then plentiful in those waters, but now extinct. 
In the spring they began the construction of 
an open boat from the timbers of the wrecked 
ship, and on the i6th of August set sail for Pe- 
tropaulovsky, which place they reached ten days 
later. During the time they were on the island 
Steller succeeded in collecting nearly i,ooo sea- 
otter skins, which he sold for one hundred 
$ S^i roubles each. This greatly excited the cupidity 
of the Russian and Siberian traders and led to 
the fitting out of numerous other expeditions 
planned to secure the rich trade thus brought to 
their attention. 

In 1742 Chirikoff made a second voyage and 
discovered the Island of Attu, the most westerly 
of the Aleutian chain. 

Yakoff Chuproff, in 1745, visited Agatu 
Island, where on the slightest pretext his men 
killed two natives, in acknowledgment of a kind- 
ly reception which had been accorded him. Sail- 
ing thence, he returned to Attu, where a party 
of ten of his men went ashore and discovered 
several habitations, in one of which their com- 
mander picked a quarrel, killed fifteen of the na- 
tives, and then took possession of the women. 




LOWLAND FOREST. 



f] 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 35 

This was the beginning of an era of brutal out- 
rage, murder and robbery of the at first peaceably 
inclined natives, which continued for more than 
half a century, and until they were completely 
subdued and made the helpless slaves of their 
Russian taskmaster, the Russian American Com- 
pany. 

In 1777 Grigor Shelikoff, a Siberian merchant 
and the founder of the first Russian colony in 
Alaska, sent out his first expedition. This and 
subsequent ventures were so profitable that in 
1778 a company of Siberian merchants was or- 
ganized, with Shelikoff and Golikoff as princi- 
pal shareholders, with a view to enlarged opera- 
tions in the Alaska fur trade. Three ships were 
built at Okhotsk, and, sailing late in the fall of 
that year, wintered at Bering Island, whence they 
sailed the following June for Unalaska, stopping 
at some of the intervening islands. At Unalaska, 
the ships having been beached and repaired, they 
took on board interpreters and a number of Aleu- 
tian hunters, and, again directing their course to 
the eastward, on the 3rd of August, 1784, cast 
anchor in what has ever since been known as 
Three Saints Bay, Kadiak Island. Here the na- 
tives, remembering the brutal treatment to 
which they had been subjected by mem- 
bers of former expeditions, refused all 
peaceful overtures, and several bloody bat- 



26 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ties ensued, in which the Russians, though 
far inferior in numbers, were the victors. 
The natives were unaccustomed to the guns 
with which the Russians were armed, and against 
which they had nothing to oppose except spears, 
which were wholly ineffective against the longer 
range of the Russian muskets. Shelikoff claimed 
to have killed several hundred natives and cap- 
tured more than a thousand prisoners before be- 
ing able to effect a permanent landing, but this 
claim was no doubt a great exaggeration. It is 
not disputed, however, that he captured some 
two hundred young native women, whom he 
held as hostages for the continued peaceable be- 
havior of their kindred. 

Here, as speedily as possible after effecting a 
landing, Shelikoff erected fortifications, built 
store houses, magazines and dwellings, and thus 
established the first permanent Russian settle- 
ment in Alaska, Gardens were planted, and a 
school opened, in which Shelikoff himself and his 
wife, who had accompanied him, were the teach- 
ers. Children and adults were taught the Rus- 
sian language, given the lessons of a primary 
education, and more especially instructed in the 
first principles of the orthodox faith. 

From here parties were sent out to explore the 
coast of the island. Cook Inlet and Prince Wil- 
liam Sound, all of whom on their return were 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 27 

sent to Karluk for the winter on account of the 
scarcity of provisions in the settlement and the 
plentiful supply of salmon to be had at that place. 
Trading posts were established on Afognak 
Island, in Cook Inlet and at Cape St. Elias, and 
then Shelikoff returned to Siberia, taking with 
him a number of adult natives and children, the 
latter to be educated. 

A Spanish expedition sailing from San Bias, 
under command of Juan Cuadra, planted the 
cross at some point near Salisbury Sound — either 
on Kruzoff or Chichagoff Island — in July, 1775, 
thus assuming to take possession of the country 
in the name of the Spanish monarch. 

In the summer of 1778 the gallant and intrepid 
Captain James Cook, with the ships Resolution 
and Discovery, sailed along the Alaskan coast 
and gave to many of the prominent bays, capes, 
mountains, inlets and islands the names they still 
bear — Mount Edgcumbe, Cross Sound, Cape 
Suckling, Mount Fairweather, Comptroller Bay, 
Cape Hinchinbrook, Prince William Sound, be- 
ing of the number. He sought shelter with his 
ships, and to repair a leak, in what is now known 
as Port Etches, and next anchored in Snug Cor- 
ner Cove, Prince William Sound, where he held 
his first intercourse with the natives, whom he 
found rather bold and unacquainted with fire- 
arms, which fact he accepted as conclusive proof 



28 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

that no white men had previously visited that 
part of Alaska. He next rounded and named 
Cape Elizabeth, sailed up the inlet which bears 
his name under the impression that he had either 
entered the mouth of a great river or had found 
the then long-sought-for "northwest passage" 
from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the 
East Foreland sent boats to examine Turnagain 
Arm and Kaknu River, and formally took pos- 
session of the country in the name of his sover- 
eign, though he must have known from the evi- 
dence afforded by articles of European make 
found in the possession of the natives that others 
had preceded him. This formal ceremony he 
repeated at the mouth of the Kuskoquim River, 
after having sailed from Cook Inlet south 
through Shelikoff Strait, past Afognak, Kadiak, 
and the Shumagin Islands and making his way 
through Unalga Pass into Bering Sea. From 
the mouth of the Kuskoquim he sailed northwest 
past Nunivak, Sledge and King Islands through 
Bering Strait to Icy Cape, so named by himself. 
From there he returned to Norton Sound, 
thence to Ounalaska, where he made repairs and 
interchange of courtesies with the Russians who 
were then at Captain's Harbor, thence sailing to 
the Sandwich Islands, where he was killed by the 
natives. 

In 1779 a second Spanish expedition, fitted 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 29 

out in Mexico, entered Bucarelli Sound, Prince 
of Wales Island, and took formal possession in 
the name of the King of Spain by the planting of 
a cross, waving of flags and firing of cannon. 
This expedition surveyed and charted the Sound, 
but made no new discoveries of value. 

Subsequent to the founding of the settlement 
of Three Saints by ShelikofT and the establish- 
ment of the auxiliary trading posts, of which men- 
tion has been made, several expeditions sailed 
along the coast and among the islands, trading 
wherever possible with the natives, much to the 
annoyance and discomfiture of Shelikoff and his 
partners, who feared that the invasion might not 
only seriously impair their own trade, but finally 
ruin it entirely. They finally invoked the pro- 
tection of the imperial government and in 1788 
were granted a charter giving to their company 
exclusive control of the islands and mainland of 
Alaska actually occupied by them, and in 1790 
Alexander Baranoff was sent to Kadiak as their 
chief manager. 

May 2, 1788, one of Shelikoft''s vessels landed 
at Nuchek, where the commander erected a 
wooden cross, at the foot of which he buried a 
copper plate engraved with an inscription claim- 
ing the country as Russian territory. He then 
proceeded along the coast, erecting other crosses 
and burying other copper plates, the latter each 



30 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

bearing the inscription: ''Possession of the Rus- 
sian Empire." 

Alexander Baranoff, who figured more con- 
spicuously than any other person in the history 
of Russian America, was born in eastern Russia 
in 1747, and at an early age went to Moscow, 
where for several years he was employed as a 
clerk in a retail store. In 1780 he went to Si- 
beria, and from Irkutsk set out in 1789, with an 
assortment of goods, principally liquors, which 
he proposed selling to the natives of Kamtchat- 
ka. The venture proved a disastrous one; he 
was robbed by the Chukchees, and, being bank- 
rupted and rendered desperate by his losses, was 
ready for any employment or venture which 
might be offered him, however hazardous. Shel- 
ikoff, having a high appreciation of the sterling 
honesty, indomitable courage and executive abil- 
ity of Baranoff, with whom he was well acquaint- 
ed, tendered him the position of chief manager 
of his company's business in Alaska, which was 
promptly accepted. Broad minded, liberal, en- 
ergetic, fearless, though he may have been, the 
history of his administration in Alaska justifies 
the belief that, officially, he was wholly unscrup- 
ulous. He was subject to fits of melancholy, was 
a hard drinker, and possessed of a violent temper. 
Prone to give offense, he was quick and earnest 
in repentance, and always sought to make atone- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 31 

ment by the offer of presents and giving of ban- 
quets, at which last the pain he had inflicted was 
drowned, or for the time being lost sight of in 
the flowing bowl. He was hospitable to stran- 
gers, but reticent and wary even when in his 
most convivial mood. He was small of stature, 
with sallow complexion, but was possessed of 
nerves of steel and feared neither man nor beast. 
Baranoff sailed for Alaska August 30, 1790, 
but the ship in which he embarked was wrecked 
in Kashigin Bay, Unalaska Island, on the 28th 
of September, those on board barely escaping 
with their lives and only a small part of the cargo 
being saved. Here he spent the winter with his 
men, fifty-two in number, enduring great hard- 
ships and subsisting part of the time on the car- 
cass of a whale which fortunately came ashore 
and was secured. Constructing three large bid- 
arras;* in one of them he made his way to Three 
Saints, a distance of at least 800 miles, where he 
arrived on the 27th of June, 1791. At this time 
the SheHkoff Company had succeeded in estab- 
lishing permanent settlements on Cook Inlet and 
at Nuchek, while rival companies had located 
themselves on several of the Aleutian Islands, 
and at other points in close proximity to those 
of their chief competitor. 

* Open boats made of walrus hides. 



32 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

In 1792-3 Baranoff removed from Three 
Saints to the northeast side of the island, where 
he established his headquarters, the original set- 
tlement being practically abandoned. The place 
to which he removed is the present site of the vil- 
lage of St. Paul, and still one of the principal 
centers of the fur trade. In the same year he 
established a ship-yard at Sunday Harbor, west 
of Prince WilHam Sound. A practical ship- 
builder and navigator, an Englishman named 
Shields, had been sent out by ShelikofT, and to 
him belongs the credit of having superintended 
the construction and launching of the first ves- 
sel built on the Alaskan coast. This vessel was 
named the Phoenix. She was launched in Au- 
gust, 1794, and sailed for Okhotsk April 20, 1795, 
making the voyage in about thirty days. 

The building of this first ship was attended by 
many difficulties. In the absence of saws nearly 
all the planks were hewed out of the logs, and all 
the iron used was collected from the different 
settlements, steel for the axes used being made 
from the same material. They tried to extract 
iron from ore found in the vicinity, but failed. 
Two other ships were built at this place. 

From 1790 to 1794 various hunting and trad- 
ing expeditions were sent out from St. Paul, 
some going as far east as Yakutat Bay. At the 
same time there was a constant clash between the 



i 



\ 



\ii 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 33 

rival companies and traders, and not infrequently 
Russian was arrayed against Russian in armed 
conflict. This continued until Baranoff, feeling 
perfectly secure in his position, arbitrarily dispos- 
sessed his rivals of the stations they had estab- 
lished. This he accomplished by the assumption 
of governmental authority he did not possess, by 
threats, and a display of force the others felt 
themselves unable to withstand. 

In August, 1794, two vessels arrived at St. 
Paul with cargoes of provisions, stores, imple- 
ments, cattle, and 192 emigrants, among whom 
were fifty-two craftsmen and agriculturists, and 
eighteen priests and theological students in 
charge of Archimandrite Josaph. In sending 
priests and agriculturists to the colony, ShelikofT 
had no other object in view than the favorable 
efifect such action was certain to have on the 
members of the imperial family. Baranoff as- 
signed the agriculturists to other labor, and in no 
very polite terms informed the priests that he 
would have no drones in his settlements, and that 
they, like all the others, must earn their living 
by physical, not mental, toil. The consequence 
was that the priests conspired against Baranoff's 
authority, and in return the chief manager made 
them the victims of a petty persecution of which 
they bitterly complained in communications that 



34 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

were never permitted to reach the imperial au- 
thorities. 

Most of these craftsmen and agriculturists 
were Siberian convicts, fifty of whom were sent 
to garrison a fortification erected at Yakutat in 
the summer of 1796. In this year the first church 
building was erected at Three Saints, but history 
is silent as to how, in view of Baranoff 's hostility 
to the priests, the project was consummated. 
Two of the latter were sent with the convicts to 
Yakutat, where during the winter of 1796-7 they, 
together with their companions, suffered almost 
incredible hardships, being reduced to the verge 
of starvation before relief could be sent to them 
in the spring. 

In 1799 the Russian- American Company was 
granted a charter giving it full and absolute con- 
trol of the Russian possessions in America for a 
term of twenty years. This charter was much 
wider in its scope than that held by the Shelikoff 
company, of which the Russian- American Com- 
pany was simply a reorganization, and by its 
terms the company was required to plant settle- 
ments, promote agriculture and other industries, 
propagate the established church, and extend 
the Russian possessions to the remotest limit 
possible. BaranofT was continued as manager, 
with the title of Governor, and as such was in- 
vested with a power which, owing to the improb- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 35 

ability of any appeal ever reaching a higher au- 
thority, was practically supreme. 

This charter empowered the company to vest 
in its employes, who were, or might become, 
occupants of lands in the colony, title thereto, 
on condition, however, that the possessions of 
the natives should not be disturbed. Acting 
under this charter, the company caused dwellings 
to be erected for the use of its employes on lots 
of ground set apart for that purpose, the title 
in fee to the same being vested in the employe 
in possession when he had faithfully served out 
his term of service, or, having died before it end- 
ed and leaving a w^idow or children in the colony, 
the title was vested in them. This was one mode 
adopted by the company for taking care of its 
employes when by reason of old age or other dis- 
ability they were unable to maintain themselves, 
and of their widows and children after death. The 
term of service of these employes was fixed by 
the charter at five years, the company paying 
certain wages, which were small, furnishing nec- 
essary supplies, and presenting a bonus provided 
for in each contract at the end of the term of 
service. That the plan of vesting title in em- 
ployes was not generally carried out is proved 
by the fact that at the time of the transfer only 
twenty-one fee simple titles were confirmed by 
protocol, and these, it is safe to say, do not cover 



36 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

an aggregate of more than three hundred acres. 
All the Russians and Creoles* were left in posses- 
sion of their homes, it is true, but of the whole 
number only twenty-one were successful in hav- 
ing their titles secured to them. To the credit 
of our Government, however, it can be said that 
they cannot now legally be distributed in the pos- 
session of any lands occupied or claimed by them 
prior to May 17, 1884. That Congress will ulti- 
mately, by the necessary enactment, secure to 
them absolute titles to their homes is not to be 
doubted. By a provision in the charter, or by a 
rule of the company, to which it conformed in 
all cases as to a law, an old and disabled employe 
while he lived in the Territory, and his widow 
and children after his death (so long as the chil- 
dren were unable to maintain themselves), were 
considered the wards of the company, to whom 
it regularly paid a yearly pension. As late as 
1888 there were old employes of the company at 
Sitka who were still drawing these pensions, the 
imperial government having assumed the obli- 
gations of the company in that respect. 

* Descendants of Russian fathers and native mothers, 
improperly so called by local usage. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 37 



CHAPTER IV. 

Baranoff Establishes Settlement on Sitka Sound, 1799 — 
Archangel Fort and Settlement Destroyed and Set- 
tlers Massacred by Natives, 1802 — Few Survivors 
Rescued and Natives Punished by English Ships — 
Natives Build and Occupy Fortification at Mouth of 
Indian River — Driven Out by Baranoff, 1804 — New 
Archangel (Sitka) Founded Same Year — First Ves- 
sel Built at Sitka, 1807 — Baranoff Superseded and Dies 
While on His Way to Russia — Natives Attack Sitka 
and Are Defeated, 1852 — Brief Review of Events, 1818 
to 1867. 

In April, 1799, Baranoff sailed from St. Paul 
with two vessels, one of which had been built at 
Prince WilHam Sound during the preceding 
winter, and a fleet of 200 canoes, with a view of 
establishing a settlement on Norfolk (now Sitka) 
Sound. Thirty of his canoes were swamped in 
a heavy sea off Cape SuckHng, by which he suf- 
fered a loss of sixty men. Soon after, his fleet 
of canoes having landed for the night, those on 
shore were attacked by natives, in the dark, and 
here again he lost about thirty men and a num- 
ber of canoes. On the 25th of May he landed 
at what is now known as Old Sitka, near which 
point he found the English ship Caroline at an- 
chor. He found the natives hostile and inclined 



38 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY. 

to resist his attempt at settlement, but succeeded 
in capturing a number of hostages, and having 
effected an agreement with Kattla-an, the then 
ruling chief of the Sitkas, proceeded at once with 
the building of a fortified post. The fort consist- 
ed of a stockade, with blockhouses over cellars, 
two stories high, on each corner. The other 
buildings were one large two-story structure, 
with basement and veranda on all sides, a large 
house occupied by the Aleutian hunters, a black- 
smith shop, cook house for laboring men, bath 
house, warehouse, and a small building on the 
summit of a hill, somewhat resembling that on 
which the castle was afterwards located in Sitka, 
but which was called the "ke-koor." The latter 
was occupied by the Governor, and history as- 
serts, was the most illy constructed of the lot, 
vBaranoff having more regard for the health and 
well being of his men than for his own ease and 
comfort. Before the party moved into the fort 
they lived in tents, and the exposure was such 
that several diseases became prevalent among 
them, principal of which was scurvy. The force 
consisted of twenty-three Russians and fifty-five 
natives from the Aleutian Islands, and during the 
months of November and December preceding 
the completion of the fort they experienced great 
hardships, being obliged to subsist principally 
on the flesh of the walrus and hair seal. In April, 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 39 

1800, Baranoff left the fort, which he had named 
Archangel, in charge of a Mr. Medvednakoff 
and returned to Kadiak, having, as he thought, 
firmly established his settlement and secured the 
friendship and good will of the adjacent natives. 
He then proceeded to establish settlements in 
Prince William Sound, at the mouth of Kaknu 
River, Ilyamna Lake and other points, some of 
which wxre immediately afterwards destroyed by 
the natives. 

In July, 1802, the fort and settlement known 
as Old Sitka, to which Baranoff had given the 
name of Archangel, was attacked and destroyed 
by the Thlinkets, who killed nearly all the set- 
tlers. At that time there was a native village at 
the mouth of the Indian River and another and 
larger one on Crabapple Island, in Sitka Sound. 
The natives of these two settlements were joined 
by many others from a distance in a well-planned 
surprise of the small garrison, and the attack was 
so sudden and unexpected that practically no de- 
fense was made, the vessel which had been left 
by Baranoff for the protection of the place being 
absent at the time. A letter written by Ambro- 
sium Plotnikoff, one of the garrison, which was 
found in the counting-house of the Russian- 
American Company after the transfer of Alaska 
to the United States, gives the following account 
of the massacre: 



40 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

''In 1802, on the 27th day of July, about half- 
past I o'clock in the afternoon, I went to the 
creek to look after the cattle, for which duty I 
had been detailed by William Medvednakoff, our 
Superintendent. Shortly after my return I saw 
a large number of Thlinkets gathering around 
the house occupied by the working people. The 
Indian chief, Michael, was talking very loud and 
excitedly addressing his people, but, not being 
acquainted with their language, I could not un- 
derstand what he was saying. Shortly afterward 
I saw over sixty canoes coming around the Point, 
and I immediately started for the house. To my 
surprise, I found all the doors fastened on the 
inside, so I started back and ran into the stable, 
where I had always been in the habit of keeping 
a gun. I found there the 'wife and child of one 
of the employes, who at my suggestion sought 
refuge in the woods. As soon as she left I barri- 
caded the doors and windows and loaded my 
gun. Soon after four Indians came to the door, 
demanded admission, and, forcibly gaining en- 
trance, overpowered me, but I shortly after lib- 
erated myself and ran into the woods, leaving my 
coat and gun in their hands. After awhile, being 
very anxious to know the outcome, I returned 
to a point near the fort and found all the build- 
ings on fire except the warehouse, of which the 
Indians had possession, and from which they 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 41 

were throwing the furs, provisions, etc., out 
through the windows and carrying them to the 
canoes which had been brought for the purpose 
of taking them away. I saw one of our men 
jump through a window of one of the burning 
buildings, only to be picked up on the fighting 
knives of the savages and thrown back into the 
fire. I also saw them cut off another man's head 
and throw the headless body into the flames. 
While I was standing there looking on I noticed 
two Indians running toward me, and at once 
took shelter behind a big tree, under cover of 
which I again ran into the woods. In the even- 
ing I again returned to take a look at the mourn- 
ful scene The buildings were still burning, and 
I noticed a little ways off some of our cattle with 
knives sticking in their backs and sides and en- 
deavored to relieve them, but was discovered by 
the natives, and had to retreat again into the 
woods, where I remained during the night. Early 
next morning I heard the discharge of muskets, 
and, being frightened, I started for the mountain, 
and on the w^ay met a woman and her child and a 
sick man, who had escaped. We all continued 
on to the mountain, returning to the vicinity of 
the fort nearly every night to lament over our 
departed brethren. In this w^ay, without food, 
we passed eight days. On the eighth day, about 
noon, I heard two reports of a cannon, and, re- 



42 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

questing my companions to remain quiet until 
my return, I went to learn the meaning of the 
reports. As soon as I got out of the woods I 
saw a ship which I at first thought was our war 
vessel, the Katherina, but which on nearer ap- 
proach proved to be English. When she came 
within hailing distance I endeavored to make 
myself heard and seen, but could not succeed in 
attracting the attention of those on board. I 
was, however, noticed by some Indians in the 
vicinity, and felt compelled to retreat once more 
into the woods, where I remained until dark, 
when I again went down to the beach, taking a 
route which brought me nearer to the ship. I 
hailed her successfully this time, and a boat was 
sent for me and I was taken on board. I in- 
formed the Captain of what had taken place and 
then returned to my companions and found that 
another man, named Batoorin, had joined them 
during my absence. We then all returned to the 
beach and were taken on board ship. Batoorin 
and I asked the Captain to send a boat to the 
fort, which request was granted, and a boat with 
an armed force in command of the Captain him- 
self was dispatched to the shore, taking me along. 
The Captain and myself were the first to land, 
and we soon discovered several of my dead breth- 
ren, whose heads had been completely severed 
from their bodies, and whom we afterwards bur- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 43 

ied. Among the ruins we found pieces of copper, 
but nothing else. The vessel remained three 
days in the harbor, and on the third a canoe came 
alongside, with Michael, the chief of the Sitka 
tribe. He inquired at once if there were any 
Russians on board, which inquiry convinced the 
Captain that they were not aware of our rescue 
and he replied that he had not seen any Russians 
since his arrival. At the same time he requested 
us to go below and remain, and then by kind and 
reassuring words he induced Michael, his 
nephew, and a squaw to come on board. I at 
once recognized the squaw as the former serv- 
ant of one of our men, and jumped to the con- 
clusion at once that she had all along been play- 
ing the spy and informer. Getting them on 
board, the Captain ordered that they should be 
doubly ironed, after which he informed them of 
our presence and told them that they would not 
be liberated until they had returned all the stolen 
furs, etc., and brought on board all the men, 
women and children of the settlement who had 
not been killed, but reserved for a life of slavery. 
He assured him also that in case his order was 
not strictly complied with he would certainly 
hang him (Michael) to the yard arm. While this 
talk was going on two more English vessels 
came to anchor close by, the Captains of which 
came on board our ship, when I immediately 



44 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

recognized one of them, whose name was Abbot, 
and who had frequently visited Archangel. A 
consultation was had between the three Captains, 
the result of which was an order that the cap- 
tured persons and property be brought on board 
without further parley or delay, and the Indians, 
anxious for the life of their chief, lost no time in 
bringing in two women and four children, assert- 
ing that they had no more. After the ar- 
rival of the two ships referred to, it should 
have been remarked, canoes came out to 
the ship in large numbers. Having ascer- 
tained from those who were returned that 
quite a large number of others were still detained 
by the Indians, and they positively refusing to 
surrender any more, the Captain ordered his 
crew to fire on the canoes and their occupants. 
After a large number had been killed they 
begged for mercy, and promised to comply 
with the order to bring in the prisoners, when 
the firing ceased, and the remainder of the wom- 
en and children were brought to the ship. From 
the last comers I ascertained that they still held 
one man, named Taradonoff, prisoner, and I in- 
formed the Captain of the fact. The Indians 
then begged the Captain to liberate their chief, 
which he declined to do, informing them that 
they still held one Russian a prisoner, and that 
he too must be delivered up. Then they went off 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 45 

and brought Taradonoff on board, together with 
a large quantity of furs, when the chief and his 
two companions were released, though we 
begged the Captain to take them to Kadiak. 
After securing supplies from the other ships the 
one which had rendered us such opportune aid 
sailed for Kadiak, where we all arrived after a 
five days' voyage, more than thankful to the 
English Captain who had saved our lives." 

On the loth day of July, 1804, the ship Neva 
arrived at St. Paul, where her commander. Cap- 
tain Lisiansky, found a communication from 
Baranoff asking him to proceed to Norfolk 
Sound, for which place he had himself sailed on 
the 2nd of April with four small ships and a fleet 
of 300 canoes, having on board 120 Russians and 
about 800 Aleuts. Baranoff had, on hearing of 
the massacre, immediately started for Sitka, but 
got no farther than Yakutat, where he left his 
trusted friend and lieutenant, Kooskoff, to com- 
plete an unfinished fortification and to build two 
ships, and then returned to Kadiak, starting 
again the following spring for Sitka, the two 
ships built by Kooskoff during the winter form- 
ing a part of the fleet. On the 20th of August 
Lisiansky, in compHance with Baranofif's request 
for aid in re-establishing the settlement at Sitka, 
entered Norfolk Sound, where he found two of 
Baranoff's ships awaiting the arrival of the Gov- 



46 ^ ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ernor, who was engaged in hunting while mak- 
ing his way along the coast from Yakutat. Bar- 
anoff did not arrive until the 19th of September. 
In the meantime the natives had united their two 
villages and built a very strong fortification at 
the mouth of- Indian River. This fortification 
was an irregular square, with its longest side 
facing the bay; it was constructed of a double 
tier of huge logs and mounted with cannon. 

Finding the fort invulnerable to cannon balls, 
Baranoff landed a force of men with a few cannon 
and attempted to carry the fortifications. He 
was repulsed and the entire attacking party 
would have been killed but for the protection 
afforded them by a heavy fire from the ships. 
The next day the ships, having secured a shorter 
range, subjected the fort to a heavy and inces- 
sant cannonade, and at night the natives (Ka- 
loshies, the Russians called them) sued for peace, 
at the same time offering hostages as security for 
their future friendly behavior. Negotiations 
were carried on for two or three days, when one 
morning it was discovered that the natives had 
abandoned the fort, leaving only two old women, 
a little boy, and two European or American ren- 
egades behind them. It was believed that these 
renegades had instructed the Indians not only 
how to build the fort, but also how to use the ar- 
tillery of which they were in possession, and 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 47 

which was probably that which had been cap- 
tured by them at Old Sitka. It need hardly be 
said here that these renegades were promptly 
executed by the Russians. On taking posses- 
sion of the fort fourteen houses were found with- 
in its walls, and in them a large quantity of dried 
fish and other provisions, and from appearances 
it was judged that it must have had at least 800 
male occupants. It was ascertained too, that 
the fort had been abandoned because the Indians 
were without ammunition with which to con- 
tinue the defense. In the houses Baranoff found 
most of the furs and other goods which the In- 
dians had captured at Old Sitka, those reclaimed 
by the English Captain two years before proving 
to have been but a small part of the whole. 

During the fight several of the Russians were 
wounded, but it does not appear that any were 
killed. The next day after the capture of the fort 
a boat manned by six sailors and a midshipman 
was sent ashore to secure a supply of fresh water, 
and shortly after landing they were attacked by 
the natives, and before assistance could be ren- 
dered were killed, the Indians immediately there- 
after fleeing into the woods and beyond safe pur- 
suit. The bodies of these slain men were buried 
on the shore close to the bay, the place being 
marked several months afterward by a wooden 
monument erected by order of Governor Baran- 



48 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

off. The remains of this monument are still to 
be seen. 

The Indian fortification having been de- 
stroyed, Baranoff proceeded to the erection of a 
new Russian fort on the present site of Alaska's 
capital. On the summit of the "ke-koor," on 
which the "castle" was afterwards built, there 
was then an Indian house, surrounded by a 
stockade, and in it lived one of the Indian chiefs. 
It took the Russians two days to capture this 
house, such was its inaccessibility and the valiant 
defense made by its owner. 

In the summer of 1805 Rezanoff, who had 
married Shelikoff's daughter but was then a wid- 
ower, was sent out to inspect and report on the 
condition of the colonies. He was at the time, or 
had been, a member of the imperial household 
and an officer of the Emperor's body-guard, while 
at the same time a principal shareholder in the 
Russian-American Company. Baranoff had 
asked to be relieved, and it was intended that 
Rezanoff should assume the duties of Governor 
and chief manager, a position which, however, 
he declined, after having learned by personal ex- 
perience the difficulties and hardships he would 
necessarily have to contend with. In a report 
to the company, made under date of November 
6, 1805, Rezanoff says: 

"Owing to the scarcity of buildings the peo- 



II 



i 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 49 

pie are confined to very crowded quarters, with 
which, however, they must necessarily be con- 
tent for the present. The building occupied by 
the founder of the settlement is in the worst con- 
dition of any, and he is deprived of all luxuries; 
the roof leaks badly and the wind has free ingress 
from all points of the compass. He is a wonder- 
ful man, looking only to the health and comfort 
of his subordinates while exposing himself to 
every hardship and depriving himself of that ease 
to the enjoyment of which his years, his valuable 
services to his country, and his position alike 
entitle him. Baranoff is, indeed, an original 
character — a most happy creature of nature. His 
name is spoken in terms of praise all over the 
country, even as far down along the coast as Cal- 
ifornia. The Bostonians have a great deal of 
respect for the old gentleman, and are very pro- 
fuse in proffering him their friendship." 

The Russians, up to the latest years of their 
occupation, always spoke of Americans as Bos- 
tonians, and of the natives as Americans. This 
was induced, most probably, by the fact that near- 
ly, if not quite, all the American ships that visited 
Sitka in those days hailed from Boston, and that 
name was appHed to everything, even to cloth- 
ing, the native to this day, when he discards his 
blankets and puts on modern apparel, referring 
to the latter as "Boston clothes." However in- 

4 



50 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

appropriate it may have been to refer to all 
Americans as Bostonians, there was certainly a 
good deal of sense in yielding to the Aleuts and 
Kaloshies the proper designation of native Amer- 
icans. 

After abandoning their stronghold at Sitka 
the natives built another fort on Chatham Strait, 
opposite the present village of Killisnoo, where 
they remained until the summer of 1806, when 
the Neva, having returned with the hostages she 
had carried away the year before, messengers 
were sent to inform their friends of the fact and 
invite them to return to their former place of 
abode. Among these hostages were three Creole 
boys, who were believed to be sons of three 
American renegades, to whom Baranoff had 
given Russian names. The descendants of these 
boys are, or were a few years since, still living in 
Sitka. Accepting Baranoff's invitation, a delega- 
tion of natives visited him at Sitka, where they 
were received with great pomp and ceremony. 

In this same year the settlement at Yakutat 
was destroyed and all the colonists, except the 
Russian commander and his wife and children 
and a few Aleuts, slaughtered. A contemplated 
attack on Nuchek was frustrated, and those of the 
hostile party who were not entrapped and killed 
by the Russians were drowned in trying to escape 
from the harbor in the face of a heavy gale. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 51 

About the same time a party of 200 Russians and 
Aleuts were lost at sea while on their way from 
Sitka to Kadiak. 

A ship-yard having been established at Sitka, 
the first ship was launched in March, 1807. This 
ship was christened the Sitka, and in the follow- 
ing year another, called the Discovery, was 
launched and the keel of the Chirikoff laid. 

The history of the colonies during the next 
ten years was uneventful. In 1 818 Baranoff, who 
was rapidly failing, both mentally and physically, 
was relieved by Captain Hagermeister, a naval 
officer, who accepted the office upon the condi- 
tion that Lieutenant Yanovsky, who had married 
Baranoff's daughter, should, as his deputy, be 
the de facto Governor and chief manager. This 
arrangement continued until Hagermeister was 
succeeded by Captain Mouravieff in 1821. Mou- 
ravieff invited the natives to return to the old 
home from which they had been driven in 1804, 
which they did, occupying the site of the present 
native village of Sitka. The stockade was then 
strengthened, and a gate added on the side next 
to the native settlement at which a market place 
was established, but no native was permitted to 
pass the gate without a permit. All trade with the 
natives was transacted at this market place, the 
precautions against surprise and attack never be- 
ing relaxed. 



52 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

In 1824 Lieutenant Chistiakoff succeeded 
Mouravieff, and in that year the boun- 
daries of Alaska were fixed as they now 
exist, and the long established embargo 
against foreign trade was removed. The 
Russians had assumed sovereignty over the 
whole of the Pacific Ocean north of the 51st 
parallel by proclamation issued and promul- 
gated in 1 82 1, in which the vessels of other na- 
tions were forbidden to approach within one 
hundred miles of the shore, except in cases of 
extreme distress. Against this claim of sover- 
eignty over a part of the high seas both the 
United States and Great Britain entered a vigor- 
ous protest, and in 1824 a convention was signed 
between the United States and Russia by the 
terms of which the North Pacific was declared 
open to American ships and 54 degrees 40 min- 
utes recognized as the southern boundary of the 
Russian possessions, a similar treaty being con- 
cluded between Russia and Great Britain the fol- 
lowing year. 

In 1832 Baron Wrangell became Governor 
and chief director, and by his direction the set- 
tlement on St. Michael's Island was established, 
and has ever since been maintained as a trading 
post and depot of supplies for the Yukon River 
district. 

In 1839 the Hudson Bay Company attempted 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 53 

the establishment of a station on the Stikine 
River, but the Russians, disputing their right to 
do so, not\vithstanding that the treaty of 1825 
guaranteed the free navigation of that stream, 
built a fort at its mouth and fired on the com- 
pany's vessel when she attempted an entrance. 
The contention was finally settled by a lease of 
all that part of Alaska lying between 54 degrees 
40 minutes and Cape Spencer to the Hudson Bay 
Company. The fort at the mouth of the Stikine 
was transferred to the lessee company, which also 
built a similar post on Taku River, only to aban- 
don it two or three years later. 

KupreanofT succeeded Wrangell in 1836, and 
in 1840 the latter was relieved by Etholin. Dur- 
ing Kupreanoff's term the native villages were 
ravaged by smallpox, the number of those who 
died being estimated at upwards of 5,000. Prior 
to this time the Yukon had been explored a thou- 
sand miles from its mouth and trading stations 
tributary to that at St. Michael's established at 
two or three points, the principal of which was 
at Nulato. In 1851 the fort at Nulato was sur- 
prised by a hostile tribe and most of the inmates, 
including the natives living outside the stock- 
ades, barbarously butchered. Among the killed 
on this occasion was a young English ofHcer 
named Barnard, who belonged to the English 
ship Enterprise, which had been sent in search 



64 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

of Sir John Franklin. He had been sent by his 
commander to investigate a reported murder of 
a party of his countrymen in that section, and an 
imperious demand sent to the chief of the hos- 
tile tribe to appear before him was responded to 
by the surprise and attack which cost him his 
life. 

The next year the Sitka natives, who began 
once more to show indications of hostility, 
burned the buildings at Hot Springs, near Sitka, 
and stripped the inmates of their clothing, the 
unfortunates being compelled to make their way 
through the almost impenetrable forest to Sitka, 
where they arrived after many days of intense 
suffering, wholly nude and lacerated almost be- 
yond recognition. A short time after thirty-five 
Stikines, who were on a friendly visit to the 
Sitkans, were butchered in plain sight of the 
town and of the Russian garrison. 

The savage appetite for blood being whetted 
by the last mentioned butchery, the Sitkan na- 
tives next attacked the garrison, and, gaining 
possession of a church which had been erected 
just outside the stockade for their own spiritual 
welfare, used it as a point of vantage from which 
to fire on all who dared expose themselves with- 
in the enclosure. After a fight lasting nearly a 
full day they were finally dislodged with a loss of 
more than lOO killed and as many more wound- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 55 

ed. The Russian loss was two killed and nine- 
teen wounded, but the lesson was one which the 
natives never forgot, and from that time to the 
present their hostility to the whites has mani- 
fested itself only in muttered threatenings, with 
here and there an occasional cowardly and brutal 
assassination of some helpless victim. 

Tebenkoff followed Etholin as Governor; then 
came in succession Vouvodsky, Furuhelm, and 
finally Prince Maksoutoff, the last named being 
Governor at the time of the transfer of the terri- 
tory to the United States. 



i 



56 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



CHAPTER V. 

Formal Transfer of the Territory to the United States 
— Incentive to Purchase Partially Revealed — Repre- 
sentatives of Subsequent Fur Monopoly Accompany 
Commissioners — Influx of People to Sitka — City Gov- 
ernment by Sufferance of Military Authority — Russian 
Despotism Preferred to Freedom as Exemplified by 
Military Absolutism in Alaska — Exodus of Russians 
— Governmental Neglect and Unjust Denial of Rights 
— Ask for Bread and are Given a Stone. 

The formal transfer was made at half-past 3 
o'clock, October 18, 1867, with appropriate cere- 
monies, previously agreed upon by Captain 
Pestchouroff and General Lovell N. Rosseau, 
Commissioners on the part of Russia and the 
United States respectively. General Jeff. C. 
Davis had been appointed to the command of 
the military force of occupation, and the expedi- 
tion, consisting of the United States ships Ossi- 
pee, Jamestown and Resaca, with the Commis- 
sioners on board, together with several trans- 
ports carrying about 250 soldiers and military 
supplies, sailed from San Francisco on the 27th 
of September, and, touching at Victoria for coal, 
arrived at Sitka on the forenoon of October i8th. 
In his report of the proceedings to the Secretary 
of War, General Rosseau says: 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 57 

'The command of General Davis, about 250 
strong, in full uniform, armed and handsomely 
equipped, were landed about 3 o'clock and 
marched up to the top of the eminence on which 
stands the Governor's house, where the transfer 
was to be made. At the same time a company 
of Russian soldiers were marched to the ground 
and took their place upon the left of the flagstaff, 
from which the Russian flag was then floating. 
The command of General Davis was formed 
under his direction on the right. The United 
States flag to be raised on the occasion was in 
care of a color guard — a lieutenant, a sergeant, 
and ten men of General Davis' command. The 
officers above named, as well as the officers under 
their command, the Prince Maksoutoff and his 
wife, the Princess Maksoutoff, together with 
many Russian and American citizens, and some 
Indians, were present. The formation of the 
ground, however, was such as to preclude any 
considerable demonstration. 

*Tt was arranged by Captain Pestchouroff and 
myself that, in firing the salute on the exchange 
of flags the United States should lead off, but that 
there should be alternate guns from the Amer- 
ican and Russian batteries, thus giving the flag 
of each nation a double national salute; the na- 
tional salute being thus answered the moment 
it was given. The troops being promptly 



58 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

formed, were, at precisely half-past 3 o'clock, 
brought to a present arms, the signal was given 
to the Ossipee (Lieutenant Grossman, executive 
officer of the ship, and for the time in command), 
which was to fire the salute, and the ceremony 
was begun by lowering the Russian flag. As it 
began its descent down the flagstaff the battery 
of the Ossipee, with large nine-inch guns, led off 
in the salute, peal after peal crashing and re-echo- 
ing in the gorges of the surrounding mountains, 
answered by the Russian water battery (a battery 
on the wharf), firing alternately. But the cere- 
mony was interrupted by the catching of the 
Russian flag in the ropes attached to the flag- 
staff. The soldier who was lowering it continued 
to pull at it, and tore off the border by which it 
was attached, leaving the flag entwined tightly 
around the ropes. The flag-staff was a native 
pine, perhaps ninety feet in height. In an in- 
stant the Russian soldiers, taking the different 
shrouds attached to the flag-staff, attempted to 
ascend to the flag, which, having been whipped 
around the ropes by the wind, remained tight 
and fast. At first, being sailors as well as sol- 
diers, they made rapid progress, but laboring 
hard, they soon became tired, and when half- 
way up scarcely moved at all, and finally came to 
a standstill. There was a dilemma; and in a 
moment a 'boatswain's chair,' so called, wc^§ 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 59 

made by knotting a rope to make a loop for a 
man to sit in and be pulled upward, and another 
Russian soldier was drawn quickly up to the flag. 
On reaching it he detached it from the ropes, and 
not hearing the calls from Captain Pestchouro^ 
below to 'bring it down,' dropped it below, and 
in its descent it fell on the bayonets of the Rus- 
sian soldiers. 

"The United States flag was then properly at- 
tached and began its ascent, hoisted by my pri- 
vate secretary, George Lovell Rosseau, and 
again the salutes were fired as before, the Rus- 
sian water battery leading off. The flag was so 
hoisted that in the instant it reached its place, 
the report of the last big gun of the Ossipee re- 
verberated from the mountains around. The 
salutes being completed. Captain Pestchouroff 
stepped up to me and said: 'General Rosseau, 
by authority from His Majesty, The Emperor of 
Russia, I transfer to the United States the Terri- 
tory of Alaska,' and in a few words I acknowl- 
edged the acceptance of the transfer, and the 
ceremony was at an end. Three cheers were 
then spontaneously given for the United States 
flag by the American citizens present, although 
this was no part of the program, and on some 
accounts I regretted that it occurred." 

Immediately after the proclamation of the 
treaty of purchase by the President, one J. Mora 



GO ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Moss visited Sitka, and entered into a verbal 
agreement with Prince Maksoutoff for the trans- 
fer to him of all the property of the Russian- 
American Company, as soon after the transfer 
as the agreement could be consummated by pay- 
ment of the stipulated price. This verbal agree- 
ment was repudiated by Maksoutofif in favor of 
a more liberal offer made him by one H. M. 
Hutchinson, who reached Sitka on one of the 
supply ships of the expedition, and who was the 
forerunner and accredited agent of those who 
afterwards possessed themselves of the seal mon- 
opoly, and, subsequently as a close corporation 
for more than twenty years interposed an almost 
insuperable obstacle to the settlement and de- 
velopment of a country now known to be incom- 
parably rich in the variety and magnitude of its 
natural resources — which for that period of time 
held the greater part of the territory, together 
with the rights and interests of its people, in a 
grasp as relentless as that of the old Russian- 
American Company itself. 

Hutchinson purchased for his principals 
most of the Russian-American Company's ves- 
sels, and much other property at Sitka and, else- 
where, for the sale of which the right of Maksou- 
toff has been seriously questioned. Among the 
property thus sold were the wharves at Sitka, St. 
Paul and Unalaska, with warehouses and build- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 61 

ings, and the fort and buildings at St. Michaels, 
all of which, except the fort and warehouse at 
Sitka, are still occupied and claimed by the Alas- 
ka Commercial Company without the least 
shadow of legal right. 

At the time of the transfer Sitka was a town 
of considerable importance from a commercial 
and industrial point of view, with a population 
of about one thousand souls, exclusive of the 
native village. Its industries consisted of iron 
and brass foundries and machine shops, saw-mill, 
grist-mill, tannery, and a shipyard, besides the 
usual complement of shoe-makers, bakers, tail- 
ors, etc. The shipyard was located on what is 
now known as the parade ground, in which 
some of the foundation timbers of the old build- 
ings are yet to be seen. With the transfer, all the 
principal industries were abandoned, the build- 
ings of the shipyard were demolished, a retaining 
wall built, and the low ground where they stood 
filled up; there was ho further use for the brass 
and iron foundries, and of all the industries then 
existing only the old saw-mill remains. 

Up to this time schools had been maintained. 
They were established by Baranoff and enlarged 
and made more efficient by Etholin. These 
schools included a seminary for girls, located in 
the building which, since 1885, has been the resi- 
dence of the governor, and a high school in 



62 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

which the higher branches of education were 
taught in both the Russian and English lan- 
guages. These schools were discontinued at or 
just before the time of the transfer, but the pri- 
mary school has been ever since maintained as an. 
adjunct of the Greco-Russian church. The li- 
brary, founded by Rezanoff in 1805, was supple- 
mented by the club initiated by Etholin in 1840, 
with reading, card and billiard rooms, and con- 
tained at the time of the transfer over two thou- 
sand volumes of standard Russian and English 
works. 

From the time of the transfer the newly ac- 
quired territory was looked upon and treated by 
the President, and Congress as well, as an Indian 
country, and the rule of General Davis and suc- 
ceeding military commanders was little, if any, 
less than absolute. Accompanying the oflficers 
sent to take and hold possession of the ceded 
territory were a number of enterprising men, 
who went to Sitka with a view to permanent 
settlement, not dreaming that it was the purpose 
of the government to hold the country as a con- 
quered province, and to frown upon and discour- 
age every effort at settlement and development, 
instead of holding out to them the helping hand 
which had been freely extended to every other 
section of our country in the years of helpless 
infancy. These men, finding few of the old resi- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 63 

dents in the possession of fee simple titles to th-e 
premises they occupied, began to purchase pos- 
sessory rights and erect buildings, and in less 
than a month new stores, restaurants and saloons 
were opened, and with every ship came new ar- 
rivals, until the population of the town was more 
than doubled. It is not to be denied that some 
of these people were political adventurers, and 
aspirants for honors expected to grow out of 
the organization of a new territory; but the 
large majority were shrewd business men, hardy 
miners and adventurous prospectors, such as 
have ever led the advance of progress and civili- 
zation into new and undeveloped regions. 

By sufferance of the military authority a city 
charter was drafted and adopted by a majority 
vote of the people, under which a municipal gov- 
ernment was organized, with a mayor, who was 
invested with both executive and judicial func- 
tions; a common council, marshal, etc. Though 
deriving the power and authority it sought to 
exercise directly from the people, this attempt 
at municipal government proved a veritable 
mockery and delusion. The military authority 
was supreme over all, and the magistrate who 
sentenced a convicted person to jail was just as 
apt the next day to find himself an inmate of the 
mihtary prison, or perhaps sawing wood under 
guard, or performing some menial office, in pur- 



64 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

suance of sentence passed upon him by the com- 
manding officer. There was no semblance of 
civil law in all the territory which "was not sub- 
servient to the military authority. 

The situation, particularly at Sitka, became 
worse than painful. The period of seventeen 
years following the transfer, with rare intervals, 
was one of gloom and ignominy. The people, 
long resident, who hailed with joy the transfer 
as a deliverance from half a century of oppression 
bordering on degradation, and who were eager 
to declare their allegiance to the government 
which by solemn treaty stipulation had guaran- 
teed to them "all the rights, privileges and im- 
munities of citizens of the United States," were 
treated more as conquered foes than as friends 
delivered from a long period of bondage. Hus- 
bands and fathers were dragged from their fire- 
sides by dissolute wretches who disgraced the 
uniform that Grant and Sherman wore, and for 
no offense whatever incarcerated in guard-house 
cells, solely that their homes might be the more 
easily and safely invaded and defiled. During 
that dark and bloody era, innocent white men 
lost their lives in retaliation for the wanton cruel- 
ties of those who were supposed to be the coun- 
try's protectors, perpetrated upon a savage race 
who, in the absence of civilized law to which 
they would have cheerfully submitted, naturally 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 65 

turned to their own law for vindication, and just 
as naturally overstepped its license. Men who had 
committed no crime were arrested and impris- 
oned, and forced to degrading labor, without 
form of law or trial, with no recourse to the great 
writ of right, and a Secretary of the Navy did not 
scruple to order his subordinate to whose keep- 
ing the liberties of this people were at the time 
committed, to "keep these men in confinement 
so long as in your judgment the interests of peace 
and good order in the settlement may require 
their imprisonment." 

The ill-treatment accorded the Russian people 
decided a very large majority of them to avail 
themselves of that clause of the treaty which 
provided for their return to Russia within a 
period of three years, and the year following the 
transfer their exodus began, and was continued 
until all but a mere fraction of the whole num- 
ber had availed themselves of the free transport- 
ation provided by the Imperial government. 
They preferred to take their chances under an 
absolute despotism to the blessings of a free gov- 
ernment as exemplified in their brief experience 
of United States military rule in Alaska. 

In the meantime, those who had gone to Alas- 
ka from the States began to petition and memo- 
rialize Congress for a form of civil government 
suited to the requirements of the country and its 



^Q ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, - 

people, and went so far as to hold an informal 
election, at which Mr. Sumner S. Dodge was 
elected delegate to Congress, a seat in which body 
was denied him. This was afterwards repeated 
by the election of Mottram D. Ball, as delegate, 
to whom admission was likewise denied. As a 
consequence, the more active, enterprising ones 
who had gone to the territory with bright hopes 
and anticipations of a grand accomplishment, de- 
spairing of the recognition by Congress vitally 
essential to its immediate and future welfare, 
gradually sought other and more promising fields 
of exploration, business enterprise and adven- 
ture, so that within a few years after the transfer 
but a mere fraction of the civilized population of 
Sitka remained. 

MiHtary garrisons were established immedi- 
ately after the transfer, at Wrangell, St. Paul and 
Kenai, but the two last were withdrawn in 1870. 
Those at Sitka and Wrangell were retained un- 
til 1877, when they, too, were withdrawn, and for 
nearly two years the people were left not only 
without any form of government, but without 
any protection whatever. Indeed, there were 
several months in 1878-9 during which the gov- 
ernment was entirely unrepresented by any of- 
ficial, civil or military. Believing that a with- 
drawal of the troops meant the abandonment of 
Alaska by the government, the natives became 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 67 

arrogant and domineering, and during the whole 
of February, 1878, the white people of Sitka 
were constantly under arms and on guard, fear- 
ful of a surprise and attack in which the lives of 
all would be sacrificed. Their fears were not 
without substantial foundation, nor were they 
allayed until the arrival, on the first day of March, 
of the British warship, Osprey, to the command- 
er of which an urgent appeal for relief had been 
made. The arrival of the Osprey was most op- 
portune, for at the time she was first seen in the 
ofBng, Katla-an, a Sitka chief, was only a few 
miles away, coming with more than a hundred 
warriors with hostile intent. He had planned an 
attack on the night of February 6th, but was de- 
terred therefrom by the better half of the natives, 
who, partly by persuasion and partly by force, 
held him and his followers in check. This Katla- 
an is supposedly the descendant of the chief of 
the same name who planned and executed the 
massacre at Old Sitka in 1802, and he was still 
living in 1896. 

It was not till 1884, seventeen years after the 
transfer, that Alaska was accorded even the sem- 
blance of civil government. In that year Con- 
gress passed a bill entitled, "An act to create a 
Civil Government for the District of Alaska," 
which was approved by the President, May 17. 
And such an act was never before conceived in 



68 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

the brain of statesman, whether of high or low 
degree. Had its author been the well-paid at- 
torney of the wealthy corporation which at the 
time held exclusive control of all that part of 
the territory of which it cared to hold posses- 
sion, he could not have compiled an organic act 
much, if any, more in consonance with its nefa- 
rious interests and designs. After the lapse of 
seventeen years, during the w^hole of which time 
the white residents of Alaska lived in a condition 
either of absolute civil anarchy or of military ab- 
solutism, their prayers for relief were answered 
by the enactment of an organic law in which 
all the more important and valued rights, privi- 
leges and immunities of American citizenship 
are expressly and positively denied to them. 

This organic act provides that the laws of 
Oregon now (May 17, 1884) in force, so far as 
applicable and not inconsistent with the laws 
of the United States, shall be the laws of the Dis- 
trict of Alaska. It provides for the appointment 
of a governor, who shall be commander-in-chief 
of the militia, with power to cause them to be 
enrolled and to call them into active service in 
case of emergency^ and authorizes him to per- 
form the duties generally pertaining to the of- 
fice of governor of a territory, but expressly de- 
clares that nothing in the act shall be construed 
to put in force in said District the general land 



I 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 69 

laws of the United States, that there shall be no 
legislative assembly or any delegate sent to Con- 
gress. It will readily be seen that very few of 
the laws of a state can be made applicable to a 
District, or territory, having none of the subdi- 
visions of a state, and which is without powxr to 
create them. There are absolutely none of the 
duties pertaining to the ofiQce of governor of a 
territory which it is possible for the governor of 
Alaska to perform, except that of making an 
annual report; he can cause the militia to be en- 
rolled, it is true, and call them out in case of 
emergency, but it will be at his ow^n expense, 
and he is without power to compel obedience to 
his call. In fact, it sets up an anomalous form 
of civil government; assigns laws that are wholly 
inapplicable, and devolves upon the officers it 
creates duties that are impossible of performance; 
a government without the machinery necessary 
to its operation; a form without the substance. 
It has but served to prolong in a lesser degree 
the cruel injustice of which the people were for 
seventeen years the helpless victims, in that it is 
a governmental denial to them of those ^'rights, 
advantages and immunities of citizens of the 
United States" which were not only guaranteed 
to them by solemn treaty, but which have been 
honored and ratified in every instance, to every 
fragment of the United States territory, to every 



70 



ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 






fraction of the American people, except in the 
single instance of Alaska. Even at this late date 
the people of that hitherto unappreciated, long 
neglected territorial acquisition are without voice 
in any legislative body by which the defects in 
their anomalous "civil government'* can be reme- 
died, and are practically without any provision of 
law whereby they may secure titles to their 
homes. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 71 



CHAPTER VI. 

Puget Sound to Sitka — Entrancing Scenery — ^Alexander 
Archipelago — Metlakahtla — Wrangell — Juneau — 
Dyea — The Muir Glacier — Sitka — Mining and other 
Resources of Islands and Mainland — Origin, Habits 
and Characteristics of Native People — Climate. 

Instead of dividing what is here to be written 
into what many might consider appropriate 
chapters, and treating the various matters 
touched upon separately and under different 
heads, the author prefers to take his reader on 
a journey of ten thousand miles or more among 
the more important islands of Alaska and along 
the coast of the mainland all the way from the 
southern boundary to Point Barrow, the most 
northerly projection of the Continent, visiting 
on the way all the principal towns, villages and 
points of interest, taking note as we proceed of 
the physical features and natural resources of the 
different sections, at the same time giving par- 
ticular attention to the character, habits and con- 
ditions of the native people, all to be here record- 
ed as an altogether truthful narrative. 

Leaving Puget Sound, the steamer bound 
Alaskaward, after touching at Victoria, on the 
south end of Vancouver Island, proceeds on 



72 



ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



her way northward through the Gulf of 
Georgia, and long before reaching Alas- 
kan waters, enters a long stretch of in- 
land passages, separated from the ocean by 
numerous islands, and which are broken only by 
the wider waters of Queen Charlotte and Mil- 
bank Sounds and Dixon's entrance, crossing 
which last the traveler finds himself in Alaska, 
where he enters another network of inland pas- 
sages extending all the way to Juneau and Sitka, 
a distance of not less than 600 miles. 

The entrancing scenery of this route a thou- 
sand pens have essayed to describe, but it has 
never yet been faithfully portrayed by even the 
most versatile of writers. Islands, mountains, 
inlets and glaciers appear on every hand, and 
the eye is delighted at every turn by a constantly 
recurring succession of pleasurable surprises in 
the form of natural scenery sublimely grand, 
beautiful and awe-inspiring. This is especially 
true of the passage through the Alexander Archi- 
pelago, with its thousand islands, mountain- 
crowned and clothed to the snow-capped peaks 
with a livery of emerald green. The islands are 
never out of sight, and the steamer rarely ever 
more than three miles from land on either side 
during the whole distance. The blue waters are 
as smooth and calm, most usually, as those of an 
ordinary pond. From beginning to end the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 73 

ever-shifting panorama is one calculated to defy 
truthful delineation by pen or pencil. 

The first place of importance the tourist or 
traveler reaches after entering Alaska is, to 
many persons, and more particularly to those 
who have faith in the civilizing influences of the 
home missions, by far the most interesting. A 
short visit and inspection of this comparatively 
new village can but serve to confirm the faith of 
such persons, for here they will find the neatest, 
and most orderly town in all Alaska — Metla- 
kahtla — notwithstanding the fact that in all its 
population of about 1,500 there is but one white 
man, and he the founder of the settlement. 

More than forty years ago Mr. William Dun- 
can, a lay member of the Church of England, 
with true religious zeal, alone and unaided es- 
tablished a mission for the natives near Port 
Simpson, British Columbia. The people among 
whom he thus ventured to take up his abode 
were considered the worst of all the tribes on the 
coast; they were the slaves of superstition, ad- 
dicted to cannibalism and other disgusting rites, 
but under his patient, courageous teaching they 
were finally converted to Christianity. In time 
he succeeded in gathering them together into one 
orderly, well-regulated, self-sustaining commu- 
nity, until finally they found themselves living in 
modern houses constituting a village in which 



ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



were included nearly, if not quite, all the com- 
forts and appliances of civilization. This village 
was situated about twenty miles from Port Simp- 
son, and embraced about one hundred neat and 
comfortable dwellings with gardens attached, two 
school buildings, church, public hall, salmon can- 
nery, saw-mill, stores, and, indeed, all the indus- 
tries necessary to keep the people steadily and 
profitably employed. Under the practical and 
judicious guidance of Mr. Duncan they had been 
reclaimed from barbarism, trained to habits of 
industry, and transformed into an orderly, well- 
behaved community. The children of savage 
parents had been given the advantages of schools 
and religious training and instruction, but on ac- 
count of some disagreement with the State and 
Church authorities, during the pendency of which 
the devoted missionary discovered that his peo- 
ple were mere squatters upon lands to which 
there was little possibility of their ever being 
able to obtain indefeasible title, he and they con- 
cluded to seek an asylum under the American 

flag. 

Having conferred with the authorities at 
Washington and being assured of the protection 
they sought, these people selected the site of their 
present settlement, which is on Annette Island, 
about sixty miles from the southern boundary, 
and at once begar the work of carving out of the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. Y5 

wilderness a new home for themselves, to which 
they gave the name of that which they had been 
compelled to abandon. On the 7th of August, 
1887, Mr. Duncan landed on the island and was 
hailed with every manifestation of joy by the 
vanguard of his people, who had preceded him 
for the purpose of clearing up the land and pre- 
paring temporary dwelling places for those who 
were to follow. Landing from the ship, together 
with a hundred or more tourist passengers, im- 
promptu services were held in the open air, two 
United States flags having first been hoisted to 
the top of one of the tallest trees which had been 
left standing, and properly trimmed for the pur- 
pose. Here, with appropriate speeches, song 
and prayer, the Jiew settlement was inaugurated, 
the native people there and then declaring al- 
legiance to the starry emblem under which, for 
the first time, they were assembled and to which 
they accorded three as hearty cheers as ever came 
from the throats of the most loyal American as- 
semblage. It was a rare instance of self-sacrifice 
for conscience' sake, this abandonment of home 
by an entire population, rather than submit to an 
impairment of civil and religious privileges which 
could not otherwise be averted. 

Since that time Metlakahtla has grown into a 
village of not less than 1,500 people, the town 
being so laid out that every lot constitutes the 



'J'6 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

corner of a square block. Though most of their 
property was confiscated by the British Colum- 
bian authorities at the time of their re- 
moval, these people now have about them 
all the industries essential to their well 
being and steady employment, including 
saw-mill, from which is furnished much of 
the material used by the canneries for packing 
their product, a salmon cannery, blacksmith and 
shoe shops, etc., and a general store, in which 
none but natives are employed as clerks. Indeed, 
it is the plan of Mr. Duncan not only to educate 
the rising generation of his people, but to keep 
them together by furnishing employment to all 
who are able to work, at good wages, thus pro- 
viding for their physical as well as mental and 
spiritual wants. There are no drones in the com- 
munity, all being required to perform their full 
complement of labor in the various industries, 
and all, in addition to the wages received, sharing 
in the profits in proportion to the value of the 
service rendered. A regularly constituted village 
government is maintained, consisting of presi- 
dent and board of trustees, constables, etc., all 
the members of which are chosen by popular 
vote. The public buildings are the best in Alas- 
ka, consisting of a commodious town hall, 
church and school house, and a neater, more or- 
derly or better contented Christian community 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 77 

cannot be found in any state or territory in the 
Union. 

Nevertheless, these people being alien born, 
and neither white nor black, are ineligible to citi- 
zenship, and will so continue for all time, unless 
the disability be removed by an amendment of 
the federal constitution by the terms of which, as 
interpreted by the courts, they are forever pro- 
scribed. In the meantime, the irrepressible pros- 
pector has invaded the island, and the discovery 
of numerous rich gold-bearing quartz ledges is 
evidenced by the large number of claims record- 
ed at Sitka, notwithstanding prospectors have 
been warned of the fact that, the island having 
been set apart as a reservation for Mr. Duncan 
and his people, they can attach to their discov- 
eries no right of ownership or possession which 
the government can legally or properly recog- 
nize. There is little doubt, however, of the exist- 
ence of rich gold bearing ledges on the island, or 
that their development under such conditions as 
Congress shall prescribe, can long be delayed, 
whatever may be the effect, injurious or other- 
wise, upon the alien native population. 

From Metlakahtla the steamer plows her way 
into Tongass Narrows, which is a narrow pas- 
sageway between the islands of Gravina on the 
west and Revilla Gigedo on the east, stops at 
the village of Ketchikan, where there is a post- 



78 



ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



office and a native population of perhaps two 
or three hundred. Both the Presbyterian and 
Episcopal denominations have established mis- 
sions and schools in the immediate vicinity of 
Ketchikan, while a few miles to the northward 
some of Mr. Duncan^s people operate a steam 
saw-mill, passing which, the steamer next calls 
at Loring, on Revilla Gigedo Island, where there 
is a salmon cannery, post-office and store, and in 
addition to the white residents, a native settle- 
ment. 

Some very rich discoveries of gold have been 
made both on Gravina and Revilla Gigedo Is- 
lands, and it is not impossible that in the next few 
years they will become the scene of great and 
profitable mining activity. 

The next point reached is Fort Wrangell, situ- 
ate on an island of the same name, and not far 
from the mouth of the Stikine River. This is a 
town of not only considerable present import- 
ance, but one which is liable to figure promin- 
ently in the future history of Alaska, viewed from 
a commercial standpoint. It was once the chief 
trading station of the Hudson Bay Company, 
under lease from the Russian-American Com- 
pany, and later the center of trade for the once 
phenomenally rich Cassiar gold diggings in Brit- 
ish Columbia. It was likewise a military post 
for several years after the transfer, and until the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 79 

troops were wholly withdrawn from Alaska. It 
commands the entire trade of the Stikine River, 
which is navigable for about 150 miles from the 
mouth, and it is not improbable that it may be 
made the initial point of a new water and rail 
route to the Klondike placer mines, in which 
event it will again become a shipping and com- 
mercial center of great importance. Indeed, since 
the late discoveries have served to open the eyes 
of the world to the illimitable extent of the gold 
deposits of Alaska and the adjacent British ter- 
ritory, the old town has taken on new life, and 
has apparently entered upon an era of prosperity 
the most sanguine of her people scarcely dared 
hope for. 

The industries-of the place consist of a saw- 
mill and cannery, and there are several general 
stores. As yet, there are no mineral develop- 
ments in the immediate vicinity, though there is 
a considerable trade in garnets, found near by, 
which, however, are of inferior quality. 

There is here also a native village, second in 
population to none of all those of southeastern 
Alaska, Sitka alone excepted. Some of the dwel- 
lings in this native settlement are quite modern 
in appearance, but a view of the interior discloses 
an utter absence of any idea of comfort in their 
construction. Of paramount interest to visitors 
are the totem poles, which are here to be seen in 



80 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

perhaps greater number and variety than at any 
other of the native settlements. These totem 
poles consist of logs on which are carved figures 
of animals, birds, etc., in which the native reads 
the history or tradition of the family, the deeds 
of whose members they are intended to com- 
memorate. 

From Wrangell to Juneau, through Sumner 
Strait, Wrangell Narrows, Frederick Sound, 
Stevens Passage and Gastineaux Channel, the 
distance is about i8o miles, the course all the way 
after leaving Wrangell Narrows being along the 
coast of the mainland. Between the passages 
through which we have passed since entering 
Alaskan waters, and the ocean, lie the great is- 
lands of Prince of Wales, Kupreanofif, Kuiu, Bar- 
anofif, Admiralty and Chichagoff, the six largest 
of the Alexander Archipelago. On all these is- 
lands there are native settlements, and upon at 
least two of them — Admiralty and Baranoff — ■ 
there are numerous ledges of gold-bearing quartz 
awaiting only the application of capital judi- 
ciously directed to insure rich returns to those 
who shall undertake and carry forward the work 
of development. 

Juneau is the mining and commercial metropo- 
lis of Alaska, as well as the center of white popu- 
lation. The first settlement at Juneau followed 
immediately after the discovery of gold in what 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 81 

is now known as Silver Bow Basin, in the sum- 
mer of 1880, by Richard T. Harris and Joseph 
Juneau, the latter a nephew of Solomon Juneau, 
the founder of the city of Milwaukee. In the 
fall of that year the town site was surveyed and 
platted, and at first named Rockwell, in honor 
or Lieutenant Rockwell, of the United States 
Navy. For a time, however, the settlement was 
quite generally referred to as Harrisburg; but 
in May, 1882, the miners held a meeting and 
finally decided upon the name of Juneau, the 
town having by that time achieved the supremacy 
as a trade and mining center it has ever since 
maintained. 

Juneau is situated at the base of a mountain 
some three or four thousand feet in height, be- 
tween which and the town flows Gold Creek, a 
stream which is fed by the melting snows of the 
mountains in which it finds its source. This 
mountain forms the background to the site, 
which rises gradually from the waters of Gast- 
ineaux Channel to a height of perhaps 500 feet, 
to where the ground again abruptly falls away 
to the creek, the area of available building space 
on the east being limited by a mountain of lesser 
height, while to the south and west lie the waters 
of Gastineaux Channel, with a native village in- 
tervening on the west. 

The population, now numbering some thou- 



82 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

sands, can only be guessed at, in view of the 
great numbers of persons constantly coming and 
going in either direction, but it is a question 
if sooner or later its growth may not be brought 
to a standstill, because of the limited area avail- 
able for building purposes; be this as it may, 
there is no other conceivable barrier in the way 
of Juneau ultimately attaining rank as one of the 
chief cities of the North Pacific coast. It already 
numbers among its business establishments 
houses whose aggregate trade reaches well into 
the millions annually, and though boasting of 
none but frame buildings, has all the concomi- 
tants of a city in the way of public improvements, 
including water-works, electric lights, telephones, 
churches, schools and theaters. 

Across the channel, south and west, about two 
and one-half miles distant, is the town of Doug- 
las, situate on the now famous island of the same 
name. Here also is the great Alaska-Treadwell 
gold mine, with the largest stamp-mill in the 
world, adjoining which is the Alaska-Mexican 
gold mine and mill. These mines and mills are 
objects of great interest to the thousands of tour- 
ists who visit them annually, and who are invari- 
ably afforded ample time for inspection. 

Leaving Juneau, the steamer rounds the south- 
easterly end of Douglas Island and makes her 
way through Saginaw passage into Lynn Canal, 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 83 

and finally arrives at Skagua and Dyea. These 
are new towns, at the head of Lynn Canal, the 
limit of salt water navigation in that direction. 
They are the points of departure for gold seek- 
ers bound for the Yukon over the White and 
Chilkoot Passes respectively. Prior to the Klon- 
dike discoveries, Skagua was unknown; on the 
other hand, Dyea had been the point of departure 
for Yukoners for a dozen years or more before 
Skagua was publicly thought or heard of in con- 
nection with any overland route to the Yukon 
gold fields. From the head of Lynn Canal there 
are three overland routes to the Yukon, viz. : the 
Chilkoot or Dyea, the Skagua and Dalton, con- 
cerning the respective merits of which there is a 
diversity of opinion. The Skagua trail is the 
most easterly of the three, and crosses the sum- 
mit of the mountains through White Pass, the 
elevation of which is claimed to be much less 
than that which must be overcome on the Dyea 
route. Nevertheless, the Dyea trail through the 
Chilkoot Pass is claimed to be the shorter of the 
two, and is the one that has always been used by 
the Chilcats and by a large majority of the earli- 
est prospectors. Still further west is the initial 
point of the Dalton trail, which avoids the lakes, 
cafions, dangerous rapids and toilsome portages 
encountered on the others, and a preference for 
which is claimed on the strength of the assertion 



84 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

that it is the only one upon which pack animals 
can be employed to advantage. The superiority 
of location and commercial advantage of the 
rival towns at the head of Lynn Canal, depends 
upon a final determination as to which of the 
three routes in question can be rendered most 
available, and supplied with the best means of 
transportation for freight and passenger traffic. 

Going to Skagua and Dyea the steamer is like- 
ly to call at Haines Mission, which is a few miles 
south of Skagua, on the east shore of a long, 
narrow peninsula lying between Chilkoot and 
Chilcat Inlets. From the mission Pyramid Har- 
bor, where there is a large salmon cannery, can 
be reached by a trail in a distance of about two 
miles, and is often traversed by tourists while 
waiting for the steamer to discharge or take on 
cargo. Within a radius of fifty miles of Haines 
there are seven native villages, the whole con- 
taining in the aggregate a larger native popula- 
tion than is embraced within the same limits else- 
where in all Alaska. 

If the steamship in which we are making the 
voyage numbers among her passengers a fair 
sprinkling of tourists, she will afford them an 
opportunity to see the celebrated Muir Glacier, 
either while en route to Sitka or on the return 
voyage, depending largely upon the state of the 
weather. Retracing her course from Dyea and 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 85 

passing the western entrance to Saginaw Pas- 
sage, we sail through Icy Strait into Glacier Bay, 
and, though it be a day in midsummer, the ship 
carefully threads her way through great masses 
of floating ice to an anchorage immediately in 
front of and not more than half a mile distant 
from the imposing front of the great glacier. 
This glacier presents a spectacle the grandeur of 
which cannot be described — a vast river of ice, 
ever slowly and imperceptibly moving to the 
sea, and piling the enormous masses high be- 
tween the mountain banks until their summit 
towers hundreds of feet in the air. 

According to Prof. Briggs this vast body of 
ice is forty miles long, to a point inland where, 
re-enforced by no less than fifteen tributaries 
coming down as many glens from different 
points of the compass, it swells to a veritable sea 
of ice twenty-five miles in diameter. Thence it 
moves with resistless power, bearing rocks and 
detritus on its surface. Just before it reaches the 
bay it is compressed by two sentinel mountains 
into a gorge one mile in width. The frontage on 
the bay is about three miles in length, but the 
central portion from which the huge masses 
break off and float away to the sea is only about 
half that length. The height of the wall fronting 
the bay, above water, is from 250 to 350 feet, 
but careful soundings have shown that the ice is 



86 



ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



grounded at a depth of about 750 feet; therefore, 
were the whole visible, this glacier would present 
a solid wall of clear blue ice a mile and a half 
long, and 1,000 feet high. The surface is riven 
by a thousand crevasses, and the noise of the 
'huge bergs constantly breaking away and crash- 
ing into the water is like the constant roar and 
reverberation of the heaviest artillery. The view 
from the summit is indescribably grand — neither 
pen nor pencil will ever do it justice. 

Again retracing our course and running back 
through Icy Strait, we enter Chatham Strait, a 
long, straight channel averaging about six miles 
in width, which lies between the large islands of 
Admiralty and Chichagoff and Baranofif,and next 
land at Killisnoo, at which place are located the 
works of the Alaska Oil and Guano Company. 
In the meantime we have passed not far from 
the native village of Hoonah, on the north end 
of ChichagofT Island, where there is a long-estab- 
lished Presbyterian Mission, Funter Bay, where 
there are some prospectively valuable gold mines 
in the course of development, and the native vil- 
lage of Angoon, both the latter on Admiralty 
Island. 

Killisnoo is a settlement of no small impor- 
tance viewed from an industrial and commercial 
standpoint. It is located midway between Ju- 
neau and Sitka, on the most direct route, and 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 87 

adjacent to waters literally alive with cod, hali- 
but and herring. It is the practice of the exclu- 
sively excursion steamers to stop for a couple 
of hours ofif Danger Point, two and one-half 
miles distant, and give those of the passengers 
who are piscatorially inclined an opportunity to 
exercise their skill and muscle, principally the 
latter, taking cod and halibut; the most ardent 
Waltonian finds two hours all he desires, for the 
reason that the fish are so plentiful that the an- 
ticipated sport very soon becomes hard work 
and a mere question of endurance. 

Killisnoo's only industry at present consists of 
the oil works, which have an annual capacity of 
something Hke 250,000 gallons of oil, pressed at 
a temperature of 12 degrees, and 1,500 tons of 
guano, prepared from the refuse of the herring 
from which the oil has been extracted. The com- 
pany also salts for the market codfish, salmon 
bellies and herring. To make a product of 200,- 
000 gallons of oil involves a catch of not less than 
60,000 barrels of herring, which are taken in 
a lagoon near by in purse nets drawn by steam 
tugs, from which they are lifted by means of 
a dip-net operated by a steam crane. Not far 
from the place are some coal seams, but so far the 
coal has been found of an inferior quality and 
possessed of little economic value. It is believed, 
however, that further intelligent research may 



88 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

bring to light coal of good quality in workable 
veins. Less than half a dozen miles to the north- 
ward and immediately on the east shore of Chat- 
ham Strait, some most promising gold-bearing 
quartz ledges have been discovered, and there is 
every reason to believe that sooner or later Kil- 
lisnoo may become the center of an active, pros- 
perous mining industry. 

Entering Peril Strait, the eastern entrance to 
which is directly opposite Killisnoo, the steamer 
next threads her way through intricate channels 
and seething rapids to Sitka, a distance of about 
eighty miles. This is the end of her route, and 
here tourists are allowed twenty-four hours in 
which to view the sights of Alaska's quaint old 
capital, in which there are many things to attract 
the attention and excite the interest of strangers. 
Chief among them is the old Greco-Russian Ca- 
thedral, with its chime of bells, and rare paint- 
ings intrinsically worth many thousands of dol- 
lars independent of their value as works of art. 
These paintings, many of them embellished with 
precious stones, and draperies of beaten gold and 
silver, were presented to the church many years 
ago by Russian Princes and Princesses as marks 
of their devotion to the faith and regard for the 
devoted men who had consecrated their lives to 
the promulgation of that faith among a heathen 
people. During the military occupation follow- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 89 

ing the transfer the church was broken into and 
robbed of many intrinsically valuable sacred 
treasures, which have never been recovered. 

The first church building in Sitka was erected 
in 1 817 from timbers recovered from the 
wrecked ship Neva, the vessels and utensils for 
the service being made of silver by a local arti- 
ficer and the robes and draperies of China silk. 
This church, which was the first cathedral, stood 
to the right of Lincoln street, looking from the 
wharf, in the rear of a row of buildings now oc- 
cupied for business purposes, the ground imme- 
diately above which its altar stood, and beneath 
which lie the remains of one of its priests, being 
enclosed and marked with a cross to indicate that 
it is regarded as sacred ground. This small lot 
is among the parcels of land confirmed to the 
church by the protocol agreed upon by the Com- 
missioners provided for by the treaty of 1867. 
The present cathedral was begun in 1846, under 
the auspices of Governor Michael Tebenikoff, 
was completed on St. Michael's day, November 
20, 1848, and in honor of the day and builder 
was named St. Michael's Cathedral. Among its 
most precious relics is the painting of its patron 
saint, with its drapery of gold. On each recur- 
ring anniversary of the completion and dedica- 
tion of the cathedral the bells ring out their 
merry chimes from the rising of the sun to the 



90 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

going down thereof, while the day is observed 
with appropriate and impressive services. 

Sitka is the seat of a mission and industrial 
school, maintained by the Presbyterian Board of 
Home Missions, and has two government day 
schools, one for white the other for native chil- 
dren. The Greco-Russian church also maintains 
a school and orphans' home, in which instruction 
is given in both the English and Russian lan- 
guages. 

The town occupies a most beautiful site at 
what may properly be called the head of Sitka 
Sound, on the west side of Baranofif Island. It 
enjoys the advantage of a safe and commodious 
harbor, formed by the hundred or more small 
wooded islands which dot the waters of the 
sound and afiford ample protection against the 
prevailing westerly and southerly winds. Mount 
Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano, rising to a 
height of 8,000 feet, stands like an ever-watchful 
sentinel at the entrance to the sound, while in 
the background Mount Verstovia rears her ar- 
row-headed peak high above the low range of 
mountains, which partially encircle the town. 
The walk to Indian River, the most beautiful 
stream imaginable, over a smooth road which 
winds its way around the shore under an almost 
continuous bower of evergreens, and around the 
connecting trail to the falls, will impart to the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 91 

visitor a lasting impression of the beauty and 
grandeur of an Alaskan forest and the limpidity 
of Alaska's flowing fountains. 

A widespread popular error is entertained 
concerning the climate of Alaska. A person of 
even more than average intelligence in thinking 
and speaking of Alaska is very apt to associate 
the country with one of the states of the Union, 
being unaware of the fact, unless he has taken 
the pains to inform himself, that Alaska covers 
five degrees more of latitude and many more de- 
grees of longitude than does the whole of that 
part of the United States lying east of the Mis- 
sissippi River, the superficial area of the two 
sections being about equal. As well might a 
person ask about the climate of the United States 
without particularity as to propound the same 
inquiry concerning Alaska, expecting an an- 
swer not wholly circumambient. The truth is 
that though in a large part of Alaska the ex- 
tremes of heat and cold are encountered, the 
climate of that part of the country to which the 
reader has just been introduced is what might 
properly be termed semi-tropical in character. 
This is due, according to Professor Dall, to the 
Japanese current which sweeps across the Pacific 
and splits on the Aleutian Islands, the smaller 
portion passing north through Bering Sea and 
Strait, thus preventing the flow of Arctic ice 



92 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

southward, while the other and larger branch, 
sweeping south of the islands and along the 
coast, brings a warm, moist atmosphere, which 
is responsible for the only disagreeable feature 
of the climate of southeastern Alaska and the 
Aleutian Islands — that of an unusually heavy 
rainfall. Zero weather is a rare occurrence in 
Sitka, and there have been winters when the 
temperature seldom fell to the freezing point. 
What is true of Sitka in this regard applies to all 
of southeastern Alaska, with slight variations, 
and to Kadiak and the Aleutian Islands as well. 
The winter of 1885-6 was characterized by old 
residents of Sitka as the most severe experienced 
in many years, and that being the last year in 
which an official record was kept, the meteoro- 
logical summary furnished by the Sergeant of 
the Signal Corps, United States Army, then sta- 
tioned at that place, to the Governor, is here re- 
produced: 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 



93 



Meteorological Summary for the Year Ending August 31, 

1886, of Sitka, Alaska. 

[Latitude 57° 3'; Longitude 135° 19'.] 





MEAN 


TEMPERATURE. 


Self- registering 
instruments set 
daily at 11 p.m., 
75th meridian. 


MONTH. 


75TH MERIDIAN. 


1 

>> 

c 
o 


* 


1 




.sd 




7.00 HM 


3.00 P,M 


11.00 P.M 


o 




LOCAL TIME. 


•s 




2.59 IM 


10.59 A.M 


6.59 P,M 


s 


1885-'86. 
September . 


51 

46.1 

39.3 

36 

28.1 

36 

36.8 

38.3 

42.6 

48. 6 

53 7 

55.3 


55.3 

49.8 

41.5 

37.6 

30.4 

37.9 

39.5 

42.9 

49.5 

54.5 

59 

59.6 


52.2 

47.8 

39 8 

36.7 

29 

37.5 

38.2 

41.4 

48.7 

53.8 

59 

58.6 


52.8 

47 9 

40 2 

36.8 

29. 2 

37.1 

38.2 

40.9 

47 

52.3 

57.2 

57.8 


69 

59 

50 

50.5 

48 

52.5 

49 

56 

61 

68 

72 

72 


4 

20 

1 

5 

11 

6 

31 

16 

31 

16 

6 

8 


38.5 
33.0 
29.5 
20 5 
4 
24 
24 
28 
31.5 
38.5 
45 
42 


27 


October 


12 


November . 


23 


December 


31 


January 


5 


February 


13 


March 


16 


April... 


28 


May 


1,2,3 


June 


4 




10 


August .. 


28 






Sums 


511.8 
42.6 


557.5 
46.5 


442.7 
45.3 


537.4 
44.8 










Annual means 





















* Highest 72, July 6th and August 8th. 
+ Lowest 4, January 5th. 

The mean annual temperature of Sitka is 
about that of the City of Washington, the ex- 
tremes of heat and cold being at the same time 
much less. The heavy rainfall is, as has already 
been remarked, the only disagreeable feature 
of that section of Alaska now under considera- 
tion. A succession of heavy showers on a dozen 
or more consecutive days, if not continuous, as 
they sometimes are, is apt to be followed by 
incessant drizzles, accompanied by a low, hang- 



94 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ing fog, until a final summing up shows not more 
than sixty or seventy-five clear days during the 
whole year. But, when the sun does shine, na- 
ture puts on her loveliest holiday attire, and the 
atmosphere is so clear and exhilarating that a few 
days of fair weather more than compensates for 
months of rain and fog. Despite the natural in- 
ference to the contrary, it can be truthfully 
asserted that rheumatic and pulmonary com- 
plaints are not any more prevalent than in lower 
and drier latitudes, while on the other hand there 
are numerous hot springs, situate on the islands 
and mainland, which are known to possess most 
efficacious curative properties. One of these 
springs is located about fifteen miles south of 
Sitka, and there, up to the time of the transfer, 
the Russians maintained a hospital and baths, 
to which all who became afflicted with rheuma- 
tism or scrofulitic diseases were arbitrarily con- 
signed. 

Much has been written concerning the habits 
and characteristics of the native peoples of 
Alaska, and various theories speculative as to 
their origin have been advanced. That those 
of the coast and islands as far north as to where 
the Eskimos have their most southerly habita- 
tions, are a distinct race, without a drop of the 
blood of the American Indian in their veins, un- 
less it be in some instances of cross breeding, is 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 95 

scarcely to be gainsaid. They are not Indians 
in the common acceptation of the term, but are, 
undoubtedly, of Asiatic origin, more nearly re- 
sembling the Coreans than any other people in 
physiognomy, stature and personal characteris- 
tics. They can hardly be said to maintain any 
tribal relations, but are divided into clans, two 
or more of these clans sometimes living in the 
same village or settlement, each having its chief, 
generally self-constituted as such, as is the case 
in Sitka, where the Kaksata and Kokwanton 
(Bear and Crow) families reside more or less 
amicably together. A member of the Bear fam- 
ily may not, according to their law, or custom, 
rather, enter into the marriage relation with an- 
other of that family, but the husband and wife 
must belong to different clans, the wife then 
becoming a member of the husband's family or 
clan. 

There is little difference in the native people 
of southeastern Alaska, as applicable to the dif- 
ferent sections and clans, except as to the 
changes which have been wrought in their habits 
and modes of living through civilizing influences. 
All, except a part of the Prince of Wales people, 
as far up the coast as Yakutat, may properly be 
classed as Thlingets, though those of each clan 
or village are known by a separate and distinct 
name, as, for instance, those at Wrangell are pop- 



96 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ularly referred to as the Stikines, those at Sitka 
as the Sitkans; the Kakes inhabit the Kuiu 
Island, the Hanegas the north part of Prince of 
Wales, the Auks have their villages near Juneau, 
the Chilcats inhabit the country at and beyond 
the northern extremity of Lynn Canal, the Hoo- 
nahs infest the region around Cross Sound, and 
the Yakutats the district adjacent to the bay 
upon which their permanent village is located. 
The Hydahs inhabit the southern part of Prince 
of Wales Island, though a larger number of that 
people make the Queen Charlotte Islands their 
home. 

Unlike the American Indians, these people are 
industrious and self-supporting. They are pos- 
s^essed of much natural intelligence, apt in imi- 
tation, keen, shrewd traders, and among them 
are not a few more or less skillful engravers of 
wood and metal ornaments and utensils. From 
the wool of the mountain sheep they weave 
blankets in fantastic designs, which are better 
and more durable than those of civilization; from 
the fiber of the spruce they make baskets of pat- 
terns and designs almost innumerable, some of 
which are so closely woven as to render them 
impervious to water, while from gold and silver 
they make bracelets, rings, spoons and other 
articles tastefully engraved, and which are eager- 
ly sought after by tourists. Many of them live 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 97 

in massive timber houses, in the construction of 
which great puncheons, hewed or split, from the 
spruce or cedar tree are used, though not a few, 
prompted by a spirit of emulation, have of late 
built for themselves homes wholly modern in 
outward appearance, but, it must be confessed, 
with little regard to the health and comfort of 
themselves and their families. From the gigan- 
tic trees of the forest they fashion canoes, some 
of very large size and capable of carrying from 
forty to fifty persons, the symmetry of which 
is such as to evoke the praise of an enthusiast 
in aquatic sports, and in which they skim over 
the sheltered waters far and near, to hunt, fish 
and trade. The canoe is their means of convey- 
ance everywhere, and to the native Alaskan the 
^anoe is as essential as is the locomotive to the 
needs of trade and commerce among civilized 
people. 

The superstitions which formerly prevailed 
among these people have to a great extent been 
eradicated through the influence and teachings, 
of the Christian missionaries, and now exist only 
among those who have not been brought largely 
into contact with civilization. Formerly the 
shaman (doctor) exercised a most baleful influ- 
ence among them. He was not only doctor of 
bodily ills, but prophet as well, of whom all stood 
in awe, and whose edicts none dared dispute. 



98 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

He was accredited with supernatural power, by 
the help of which he was supposed to be able to 
cure all the bodily ills to which the human form 
is heir. In the event of the failure of the torture 
of incantation to cure, and the death of the pa- 
tient, the wily shaman then sought, and always 
successfully, to evade responsibility by imputing 
the death to witchcraft practiced by a secret ene- 
my, whose name, for a further consideration of 
blankets, he would then disclose. The additional 
fee being paid, the shaman would then point out 
some man or woman against whom he held a 
grudge as the person who had bewitched the 
patient, and upon the alleged witch the relatives 
and friends of the deceased would proceed to 
inflict summary punishment, usually tying his 
neck and heels securely together, and then 
throwing the unfortunate person into some out- 
of-the-way place and leaving him there to die of 
torture and starvation. By the united efforts of 
the officials of the civil government and the mis- 
sionaries this barbarous practice has been prac- 
tically broken up. Some of the shamans have 
been subjected to summary punishment, in cases 
where the law could not readily be invoked; 
others have been indicted and convicted, and 
this, together with the teachings of the mission- 
aries, has served to practically eradicate from 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 99 

among them the chief superstition to which they 
were for centuries the abject slaves. 

Nevertheless, they are a provident people. 
Poverty is almost unknown among them, and 
though importunate beggars, there is little, if 
any, actual beggary. The government has never 
been called upon to appropriate a single penny 
for their support, nor is it likely to be, for the 
reason of their willingness to labor; though the 
white people have encroached upon and practi- 
cally taken possession of their best fishing 
grounds, their field of labor has thus been 
widened, and they are abundantly able to care for 
themselves. There are very few among them 
who have not some property of greater or less 
value. All have homes — houses in which they 
have an appreciable and admitted title to some 
privilege of occupation — and most of them, in 
the compartments which belong to them, have 
blankets, clothing and some kind of traps and 
hunting apparatus, while not a few have silver 
and gold coin, bracelets, and other more highly 
prized articles. There is not a more independent, 
prosperous and contented "lower class" in any 
country on earth than the native population of 
southeastern Alaska. 



m 



100 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



CHAPTER VII. 

From Sitka to Cook Inlet — Yakutah and the St. Elias 
Alps — Copper River — Prince William Sound — Mid- 
dleton Island, St. Paul, Kadiak Island — Cook Inlet — 
Rich Gold Placers and Great Seams of Coal — A Land 
of Promise. 

Now, the reader is invited to accompany the 
author on a cruise extending over a period of 
nearly five months, and covering a round dis- 
tance of more than 10,000 miles along the coast 
and in and among the gulfs, bays, inlets and 
islands of Alaska, north and west of Sitka. It 
will be impossible to introduce him to all the 
native settlements, for the simple reason that 
they are too numerous to be embraced within a 
cruise limited to a single summer season. 

Leaving Sitka in a staunch sea-going steamer, 
let us say early in the evening of any day in May 
the reader may be pleased to designate, a run of 
fifteen to twenty hours will find us off the en- 
trance to Yakutat Bay, about 300 miles distant 
from the point of departure. Here we are apt to 
encounter schools of fin-back whales and por- 
poises disporting themselves in close proximity 
to the ship, and, if the weather is fair, as it is very 
apt to be at this season of the year, we get our 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 101 

first glimpse of the lofty Fairweather range of 
mountains, designated on the maps as the St. 
Elias Alps. To the unpracticed eye these moun- 
tains appear to be not more than a dozen miles 
away, whereas they are in fact at least fifty miles 
distant. Looking landward from the ship, to 
the right we get a fair view of Mounts Fair- 
weather, Crillon, La Perouse, and other lofty 
peaks, while to the left majestic, awe-inspiring 
St. Elias rises to a height of nearly 19,000 feet, 
their snow and ice clad peaks crowned with halos 
showing all the colors of the rainbow, and the 
whole constituting a scene at once sublimely 
grand and beautiful. The elevation of these 
mountains above the sea level varies from 13,500 
to 19,000 feet, which last is the height of St. 
Elias, the highest mountain in North America, 
unless exceeded by Mount Wrangell, which is 
farther inland, and the height of which is not 
definitely known. Lying between the base of 
this range and the seashore to the southeast of 
Yakutat is a strip of comparatively level land, 
perhaps twenty miles in width, which is heavily 
timbered and possessed of good soil. 

Mulgrave Harbor is a small indentation set- 
ting ofT to the right of the entrance to the bay, 
and on the north side is the native village of a 
dozen or more houses, in which live some two 
hundred people. There is also a trader's store 



102 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

and a Swedish Lutheran mission and school, 
and of late years the population has been aug- 
mented by a number of white men, intent upon 
amassing fortunes by washing gold from the 
ruby sands found on the beach. These sands 
contain gold enough to pay good wages, but the 
miners are in constant dread and danger of sub- 
mersion by a tidal wave or heavy sea. In the 
olden time there was a very considerable Rus- 
sian settlement on an inlet which sets off from 
the east side of Yakutat Bay, where the Russian- 
American Company maintained a shipyard and 
built quite a nuniber of ships, among them those 
in which BaranofT sailed to subdue the natives 
of Sitka after the massacre at that place in 1802. 
Except a few Creole families, nothing is now 
left of what was once a busy and flourishing set- 
tlement. 

The natives are not unlike those of Sitka, 
speak the same language and live in houses sim- 
ilarly constructed. They maintain themselves by 
fishing and hunting, and are more cleanly in their 
persons and homes than those of most other na- 
tive villages. On the lowlands lying between the 
mountain range and the sea there is a luxuriant 
growth of wild grasses, and the wild strawberry, 
of large size and excellent flavor, abounds in 
great profusion. Coal of fair quality has been 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 103 

found in the near vicinity, but no effort has ever 
been made to exploit it. 

The scenery in the neighborhood of Yakutat 
Bay, and indeed all along the coast as far west 
as Cook Inlet, is indescribably grand, far sur- 
passing in beauty and grandeur that of the in- 
land passages of southeastern Alaska. West of 
Yakutat a few miles, and seemingly forming the 
base upon which rests the great Mount St. Elias, 
the immense Malespina glacier flows down to 
the sea, presenting many miles of ice frontage to 
the unobstructed view. Yakutat Bay is itself 
a most lovely sheet of water, indenting the coast 
to a depth of perhaps fifty miles, dotted with 
numerous small wooded islands, its banks on 
either side, here and there, indented with a 
smaller cove or bay, while near its head an arm 
setting off to the eastward is very appropriately 
named Enchantment Bay, because of the en- 
chanting beauty of the enclosing scenery. 

Proceeding along the coast to the westward, 
we have for a full day at least an unobstructed 
view of mountain and glacial scenery, the grand- 
eur and sublimity of which cannot be pictured 
in words nor truthfully portrayed on canvas. 
Resting for a brief moment upon the wooded 
lowlands, the eye strays away to where some 
mighty glacier is slowly^ but surely grinding its 
way down to the sea, carrying everything before 



104 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

it, only to revert at last to where huge old St. 
Elias towers conspicuously above all his fellows 
in regions of perpetual frost. In the presence of 
nature thus arrayed in all her grandeur and 
sublimity, but little heed is paid to the seals and 
blackfish and whales which disport themselves 
at times on both sides of the ship, and when the 
long day is done and night spreads its sable cur- 
tain over land and sea we retire, blessing not 
*'the man who invented sleep," but regretting 
that this is not for the time being the "Land of 
the Midnight Sun." 

Middleton Island lies about fifty miles south of 
the entrance to Prince William Sound, and is 
a body of land about six miles long and from one 
to three miles wide. Its flat surface lies at an 
elevation of about 200 feet above the sea, the 
shores being almost perpendicular, with only one 
or two points where a landing can be effected 
from small boats. It is wholly treeless, but is 
clothed with a rich verdure, and is said to have 
an excellent soil with a climate quite favorable 
to its successful cultivation. It is uninhabited, 
except for a couple of months in the summer, 
when it is frequented by natives from the main- 
land in quest of the hair seals which congregate 
at its south end during the breeding season. 
Placer gold is claimed to have been found on this 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 105 

island, but if so, the question of how it got there 
will be a problem difficult of solution. 

Prince William Sound, or, as it may properly 
be called, Chugach Gulf, is a deep indentation of 
the mainland the entrance to which is like the 
delta of a great river, because of the many islands 
which block the passages. The gulf itself is like- 
wise crowded with islands, and its arms extend 
tentacular like in every direction, its entire sur- 
face covering an area of something over 2,500 
square miles. It was first explored by Captain 
Cook during his last voyage, in 1778, and is a 
branch of the ocean difficult to navigate, on ac- 
count of the great number of rocks and shoals 
it contains, and very few of which are delineated 
on any of the charts. The same difficulty exists 
all along the coast and among the islands from 
Sitka to Point Barrow. There are few, if any, 
charts other than those embodying the explora- 
tions and surveys of the earliest English and 
Russian navigators, and these are found gener- 
ally imperfect, and in many cases absolutely un- 
reHable, while on the whole Alaska coast of main- 
land and islands (greater than that of all the 
other states and territories combined, with cur- 
rents stronger and more dangerous than else- 
where known) there is not to be found a single 
lighthouse, fog whistle, or other artificial aid to 
navigation. 



106 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Port Etches, a very snug harbor, is situated 
in the southwestern end of Hinchinbrook, the 
most easterly of the islands which block the en- 
trance to the gulf. Between Hinchinbrook and 
Montague Islands, and between the latter and 
the mainland, on the west, are the passages to 
the gulf. On the north side of Port Etches and 
separated from it by a narrow peninsula is a la- 
goon, on the farther side of which was situated 
the original Russian fort and settlement, where 
some shipbuilding was carried on and an oil and 
fish establishment maintained up to the time of 
the transfer of the post to the narrow neck of the 
peninsula at the head of the lagoon, where the 
fort commanded the approaches by boat in all 
directions. Here the settlement still exists, 
though there is no longer any semblance of fort 
or fortifications, the principal buildings of the 
old Russian-American Company, however, re- 
maining intact. The settlement, which is known 
as Nuchek, consists of five or six comfortable, 
hewed log houses, one of which is occupied as a 
store, and about forty huts, which are occupied 
by the natives, who are of the Innuit or Eskimo 
family and call themselves Chugaches, though 
some have improperly classed them as Aleuts. 
Included in the village population of about 150 
souls are two or three families of Creoles (de- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 107 

scendants from Russian fathers and native 
mothers). 

The Greco-Russian Church maintains a small 
but very neat chapel at Nuchek, though there is 
no resident priest, partial service being conduct- 
ed by a Creole member, who, in the church vo- 
cabulary, is denominated as "reader." A reg- 
ularly ordained priest who presides over a dis- 
trict, with headquarters at the most central point, 
visits as often as possible the various chapels like 
that at Nuchek, for the purpose of baptism and 
confirmation. It should be remarked right here 
that all the Greco-Russian churches and schools 
in Alaska are supported by the Russian govern- 
ment, at a cost of about $60,000 annually, which 
is paid out of the imperial treasury. It has a 
larger following than all the other churches in 
Alaska, a fact not to be wondered at, considering 
that its priests and missionaries have been in the 
field nearly 150 years. 

There are four native villages on Chugach 
Gulf, including Nuchek, with a total population 
of about 300. Previous to 1886 the people in 
these same villages numbered a little over 800, 
but an epidemic in the winter of that year carried 
away more than half of them. They are the most 
easternmost tribe or family of Eskimos, with 
whom their language, habits and customs are 
almost identical, though allied, by intermarriage 



108 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

to some extent, with their eastern neighbors, 
the Thhngets. They live in small log houses 
thatched with grass, with the usual hole in the 
center of the roof for the escape of the smoke. 
They are an extremely dirty, filthy people in their 
houses, persons, and dress, and the faces of both 
old and young present unmistakable evidence of 
hereditary disease. A more forlorn, dejected, 
and apparently helpless set of human beings it is 
scarcely possible to imagine. This, too, notwith- 
standing Nuchek has for many years been a 
trading station of the powerful corporation to 
whose tender mercy a benign government con- 
signed the native people of the greater part of 
Alaska soon after our acquisition of the territory. 
Here, as elsewhere in all that part of Alaska 
over which this corporation was pleased to ex- 
ercise control for a period of twenty years or 
more the native people were practically robbed 
of their peltry. This was accomplished by fixing 
the price of skins at about a quarter of their 
actual value and paying for them on that basis 
in silver coin, all of which came back to the cor- 
poration in payment for goods sold to these help- 
less people at a profit of 200 per cent, or more. 
The native who dared to sell a skin to any other 
than an agent of the company was denied the 
privileges of the store and starved into submis- 
sion. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 109 

At Nuchek we encounter the first bidarkas. A 
bidarka is a small boat made of seal or walrus 
hides stretched over a light wooden frame. It 
is made by first constructing a frame of the 
proper shape and desired dimensions, in which 
there is neither mortise, tenon, or a scrap of iron, 
the several parts being securely tied together 
with sealskin thongs, after which the seal or 
w^alrus hide properly prepared and sewed to- 
gether, is stretched tightly over it. The frame 
is covered completely over, except that a round 
hatch is left in the top center for the occupant, 
around the projecting rim of which he ties the 
lower end of a water-proof shirt, made from the 
intestines of the seal, and w^hich is called a kama- 
lyka. This kamalyka is supplied wath a hood 
which is drawn closely around the neck and like- 
wise secured at the wrists, and thus the water 
is prevented from wetting the occupant or get- 
ting into the body of the boat. They are made 
in three sizes, with one, two and three hatches, 
and by the natives are called kyaks, bidarka 
being the name given them by the Russians. The 
natives are very expert in the use of this frail 
craft, in which they venture thirty to forty miles 
out to sea in their hunt for sea otter. 

Leaving Prince William Sound by the west 
entrance early in the morning, the ship steams 
along all day in plain sight of the coast range of 



110 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

snow-capped mountains, and the following day 
drops her anchor at St. Paul, on the northeast 
end of the great Island of Kadiak, which lies mid- 
way between the fifty-fifth and sixtieth parallels 
of latitude, and on the west approaches very near- 
ly to the 155th meridian, west Ipngitude. It is 
ninety miles long and sixty miles wide, and its 
area covers about 5,000 square miles. It is very 
mountainous, with numerous deep bays on all 
sides, into which a number of small rivers fall. 
The north half of the island is heavily timbered 
with spruce, which attains considerable size, and 
a small growth of alder, birch and poplar. The 
geological formation appears to consist chiefly 
of slate, porphyry and graystone, or basalt. The 
climatic conditions seem favorable to the success- 
ful cultivation of the soil, which, judging from the 
luxuriant growth of the wild grasses up to the 
very summit of the mountains, is capable of be- 
ing made to "produce and bring forth in abund- 
ance." At all events, there is a large acreage of 
seemingly the very best grazing lands, and cat- 
tle and sheep need only the attention bestowed 
in the middle and western states to insure a 
healthy growth and rapid increase. When it is 
remembered that on this island the temperature 
seldom falls to zero; that the winters are no 
longer than in Michigan or Ohio, and that an 
abundance of hay can be cut and cured for win- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. HI 

ter feed, it would be strange if cattle could not 
be grown and fattened as well as in those states. 
^ The village of St. Paul is delightfully situated 
on a bay of the same name, formed by a small 
but high island, between which and Kadiak there 
is a narrow passage forming a safe harbor, in 
which, however, but few vessels can lie at the 
same time. This harbor has, of course, two en- 
trances, one from the north and one from the 
south, but is, nevertheless, difficult of access in 
dark or foggy weather. The plateau on which 
the village is built lies at an elevation of about 
thirty feet above tide water, the mountains be- 
yond, bare of timber, but covered with a rich 
vestment of green and a profusion of wild flow- 
ers, rising to a height of two and three thousand 
feet and forming a most lovely background. 
There are perhaps a hundred houses all told, 
some of them very neat and substantial in out- 
ward appearance. It is the headquarters of the 
Kadiak district of the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany, from which all supplies are sent to and col- 
lected from the different sub-agencies as far east 
as Yakutat and north to the head of Cook In- 
let. There is also a Greek church with a resident 
priest and a government day school. There is 
a garden in connection with nearly every dwell- 
ing, in which all the hardy vegetables, potatoes, 
cabbage, turnips, onions, etc., are successfully 



112 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

grown, though it is very evident that none of 
the people are skilled horticulturists. It has 
been claimed by the detractors of Alaska that 
wheat, oats and barley cannot be grown; this 
may be true of southeastern Alaska, but there is 
no evidence that the experiment has ever been 
tried, by a practical farmer, while, on the other 
hand, it is true that these cereals have been 
grown as far north as Fort Yukon. When prac- 
tical farmers and gardeners shall have settled in 
Alaska, and after a fair test shall have pronounced 
the soil and climate unadapted to agriculture 
and horticulture it will be time enough to accept 
as fact opinions based upon the mere belief of 
persons having no knowledge of such matters. 

The population of St. Paul numbers about 
500, of whom not over 100 are white Americans, 
the others being Creoles, with a few Russians 
and perhaps a dozen natives. The population 
of the whole island is about 1,200, of which not 
more than 200 are whites, the large majority be- 
ing Creoles. Of the brave and warlike people, 
numbering, it is claimed, about 6,000, who in- 
habited the island when the Russians came, but 
a ie\y hundred remain, and they a spiritless, help- 
less set, who seem to exist because they must, not 
that they have anything to live for. In St. Paul 
there is not a single full-blooded Kanaig, as 
these people were called — they are now general- 



\ 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 113 

1; but erroneously classed as Aleuts — ^the few na- 
tives there being Thlingets who have emigrated 
from Sitka. The Kanaigs met elsewhere on the 
island and at Afognak do not by any means an- 
swer to the description of that people given by 
Shelikoff, who founded the first Russian settle- 
ment among them in 1774, and who described 
them as "tall and strong and of such healthful 
habits that they lived to 100 years." It can only 
be said that if that were true, the Kanaigs of 
today cannot be considered other than most "de- 
generate sons of a noble ancestry," and that the 
descendants of the people described by Shelikoff 
present a sad commentary on the criminal pol- 
icy of forcing upon a brave but barbarous race, 
a so-called civilization, the principal concomi- 
tants of which are greed, avarice, rapine, lust and 
murder. It was such a civilization the Russians 
gave these people; a civilization that made help- 
less slaves of those it did not exterminate; and 
to its shame it must be said that though thirty 
years have elapsed since the transfer, our own 
government has done practically nothing to 
ameliorate their condition — to them the transfer 
was a change of masters, nothing more. 

Aside from the agricultural, horticultural and 
grazing possibilities mildly hinted at this great 
island is possessed of other resources, which will 
ultimately make it the center of a large com- 



114 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

merce. Its salmon fisheries and canneries have 
for a dozen years, nearly, been turning out a 
product of the annual value of several millions. 
The salmon abound in every bay and stream, in 
their season, while the most prolific cod banks 
are within a day's sail. The fisheries alone insure 
a future for the island; but there is every proba- 
bility that within its mountains will be found 
gold and silver in paying quantities. In the 
southwest part, only a few miles from tide water, 
there is a known vein of copper (sulphide) very 
large and rich in mineral, and the geological 
formation of slate and porphyry certainly indi- 
cates with more or less certainty the existence of 
prolific veins of precious metals. 

Close by St. Paul is Wood Island, upon which 
there is a very considerable settlement, a mission 
church and school, and a post of the North 
American Commercial Company, successor to 
the Alaska Commercial Company in the posses- 
sion of the seal monopoly. 

From St. Paul the route lies through a narrow 
strait between Kadiak and Spruce Islands into 
Marmot Bay, at the head of which are situated 
the Creole and Kanaig settlements of Afognak 
on an island of the same name. At the west end 
of the narrow strait referred to, on a snug little 
indentation of Spruce Island, is the little Creole 
village of Oozinki. It consists of not more than 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 115 

a dozen families, who cultivate gardens and have 
a herd of from fifty to one hundred head of cattle. 
Afognak appears to be possessed of a good 
soil, and all the houses in the Creole settlement 
have gardens attached in which the owners grow 
their own vegetables, though none of the people 
seem to have more than the most primitive ideas 
of agriculture or horticulture. Both the Creole 
and native residents live principally by the chase, 
some venturing far out to sea in pursuit of the 
sea otter, while others are engaged in taking and 
curing salmon. The Kanaigs live in log cabins 
little better than open sheds, and are altogether 
a squalid set, with no apparent appreciation of the 
virtue of cleanliness, though some of the women 
are (or^wgidd^ be Jf J^^ rins.etd) passably 

good looking, while the children appear natural- 
ly bright and intelligent. All Creoles and Kan- 
aigs are afflicted with an irresistible appetite for 
strong drink, and make from sugar and flour a 
beverage called "quass,'' which is sometimes 
made more than ordinarily villainous by distilling 
it into a spirit which "biteth like a serpent and 
stingeth like an adder" both the brain and stom- 
ach of the one who drinks it. The most intelli- 
gent among them will readily barter his last 
mouthful of food for enough of the crude ma- 
terials from which to make a single brewing of 
the vile liquor. 



IIG ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

The island is heavily timbered, though the 
trees do not grow to such large size as in south- 
eastern Alaska, while none of it except the spruce 
pine possesses any economic value, the birch, 
alder, etc., being small. Fish are abundant, how- 
ever, and that industry, together with what may 
be developed in the way of agriculture and graz- 
ing, is about all that it can boast in the way of 
resources. The climate, as in all parts of south- 
eastern and southwestern Alaska, is quite equa- 
ble, the temperature never falling below zero or 
rising above 80 degrees. 

Leaving Afognak, the course is north, passing 
inside of Marmot Island and standing in to the 
westward of Barren Islands, which lie about mid- 
way between Cape Elizabeth and Cape Douglas, 
the opposing headlands at its entrance, we enter 
Cook Inlet, and sailing northward, leave Au- 
gustine Island and volcano to the right, and dur- 
ing the day get a fair view of the Ilyamna and Re- 
doubt volcanoes, the former of which has been 
more or less active for over a hundred years, and 
has never ceased to emit smoke and ashes. It 
was in active eruption in 1883, but the Redoubt 
and several other lofty volcanic peaks on the 
west shore of the inlet are now, to all appearance, 
wholly extinct. 

Just beyond the mouth of or entrance to the 
inlet its waters widen out into two indentations 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 117 

on the opposite shores, Kachemak Gulf and 
Chugachik Bay on the east, and the Gulf of 
Kamishak on the west. North of these indenta- 
tions the shores of the inlet again approach each 
other to within a distance of thirty miles (the 
distance between Capes Elizabeth and Douglas 
is over sixty miles) which distance it holds as far 
north as the East and West Forelands, where it 
is further contracted about one-half, holding a 
width of about fifteen miles to Turnagain Arm, 
which is in latitude about 63 degrees, and the 
point from which Cook turned back when disap- 
pointed in not finding, as he confidently thought 
he had, the much~sought-for northwest passage. 
On the east shore the mountains are not high, 
though several large glaciers can be seen in the 
distance, and there is a strip of comparatively 
level land, well wooded and from thirty to forty 
miles wide, lying between their base and the 
waters of the inlet. 

The tides in Cook Inlet are, perhaps, more 
rapid and violent than at any other point on the 
Pacific coast, frequently running at the rate of 
eight to ten miles an hour, with an average rise 
and fall of twenty-five to twenty-eight feet. The 
flood runs in in one vast volume and with a thun- 
dering noise, carrying everything before it, in- 
creasing in speed and violence as the shores ap- 
proach nearer to each other. As a consequence 



118 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

the tidal currents are very dangerous, rendered 
none the less so by the existence of numerous 
conically shaped rocks rising from the bottom 
uncomfortably close to the surface, and which of 
themselves render the navigation of its waters 
more or less perilous. The distance from the en- 
trance to the head of the inlet is very nearly 200 
miles, but in the absence of surveys its naviga- 
tion beyond Kenai is altogether too dangerous 
to be lightly attempted by vessels of deep 
draught. 

The district of country bordering on Cook 
Inlet is, perhaps, better adapted to agricultural 
pursuits by reason of its climatic conditions, as 
well as the fertility of the soil, than any other part 
of Alaska. There is a large acreage of compara- 
tively level land on the eastern shore, with a soil 
productive of excellent crops of vegetables as 
well as cereals. Though the winters are colder 
than those of Kadiak and the Sitkan region, the 
summers are warmer and drier, and, while there 
is no question concerning the curing of hay from 
the native grasses, which are abundant, barley 
and oats have been successfully grown, and that, 
too, by wholly inexperienced agriculturists. 

Kenai is on the east shore of the inlet at the 
mouth of the Kaknu River, and at the time of 
the transfer was still a fortified place; but the 
stockade and bastions have disappeared, and 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 119 

when a company of United States soldiers was 
sent to occupy the place in 1868-9 the erection 
of new barracks was found necessary to their ac- 
commodation. It is the central trading point for 
all the Cook Inlet region, and was the earliest 
permanent settlement made by the Russians; but 
there are no Russians there now, only a colony of 
Creoles, who cultivate potatoes, turnips and 
other vegetables, some of whom keep cattle, and 
all Hving principally upon the products of the 
soil. It is also a station of the Alaska Commer- 
cial Company, and the residence of a priest of the 
Greco-Russian Church, whose jurisdiction ex- 
tends to all of Cook Inlet and the region border- 
ing the coasts east as far as Yakutat. There is 
a native village of people who call themselves 
Kenaitze, about a mile distant from the Creole 
settlement. The Creoles live in comfortable, 
hewed log houses; the Kenaitze houses are built 
of unhewed logs and thatched with native grass, 
and are exceedingly dirty and filthy. 

The total Creole and native population adja- 
cent to Cook Inlet is about 1,000, and prior 
to the advent of the miners there were not over a 
dozen permanent white settlers in the whole 
region. There are, however, several large can- 
neries on the inlet, at which during the summer 
months a large number of white men and Chi- 
nese are employed, and since the discovery of 



120 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

gold there has been a large influx of miners and 
prospectors, who are scattered all along the coast, 
on Turnagain Arm, and on the numerous streams 
whose waters flow into the inlet. That there is 
a very considerable area of rich placer ground 
in the Cook Inlet region has already been proved 
by the large amount of gold taken out; that rich 
quartz veins exist in the same neighborhood is 
a fact equally well assured, and with its fishing 
industry, large area of arable land adapted to 
agriculture, and an abundance of coal, of good 
quality for domestic uses at least, there is every 
reason to apprehend that Cook Inlet may be- 
come the most thickly populated district in all 
Alaska. 

There is a settlement and cannery at the mouth 
of the Kussiloff River, about ten miles south of 
Kenai, and still further south, on the same side 
of the inlet, the Creole settlement of Ninilichik. 
The people at this latter place are descendants of 
a number of superannuated employes of the old 
Russian-American Company, who were arbitra- 
rily planted there nearly lOO years ago and left to 
work out their own temporal salvation. There 
are only about a dozen families, but they have 
quite a number of cattle, make their own butter 
and all are engaged in tilling the soil, from which 
they grow enough vegetables for their own use 
and a very considerable surplus, which they sell 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 131 

to the traders and fishermen. They also keep 
pigs and poultry and constitute an altogether 
happy little community. 

The coal measures spoken of are situate on the 
east shore of the inlet from Anchor Point at the 
entrance to Kachemak Gulf, north to Kenai, 
and to the southward on the peninsula which 
terminates at Cape Elizabeth. This coal out- 
crops for miles in the northwesterly shore of 
Kachemak Gulf, the largest exposures being in 
Coal Bay, which lies just within the entrance to 
the gulf. At this place there are three distinct 
veins or seams, in a sandstone formation which 
dips to the northwest at an inclination of from 
three to five degrees from the horizontal. The 
outcrops, or, rather, exposures made by the 
waves dashing against the bluffs, are, at the high- 
est point, above high water, but the dip carries 
the seams under the surface of the bay in a very 
short distance to the north — the principal one 
being visible for a considerable space under the 
water. The seams lie one above the other, with 
fire clay between them, the lower one being, 
at the very least calculation, eight feet thick, the 
next one above from four to five, and the upper 
not more than three. Hundreds of tons of this 
coal lie strewn along the beach, having been 
detached in large blocks from the lower vein by 
the action of the waves. The value of this coal 



122 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

for steaming purposes has been seriously ques- 
tioned, and, perhaps, properly so; but it is a can- 
nel coal of superior quality for domestic use, and 
the only coal yet discovered on the Pacific coast 
with which iron and steel can be welded. The 
objection to it as a steaming coal is found in 
the fact that, being lighter than either the bitu- 
minous or anthracite coals, it is too bulky to 
admit of a sufficient quantity being economic- 
ally stowed for long voyages. That these coal 
measures are considered of great economic value 
is evidenced by the fact that a large number of 
claimants have made application to enter lands 
in advance of the enactment of any law under 
which they can obtain title or even a prior right 
of entry. 

The existence of these coal seams was well 
known to the Russians, but were not worked by 
them, owing to the fact that they open upon 
the beach, and, as they could only be successfully 
worked through perpendicular shafts of consid- 
erable depth, they preferred to commence opera- 
tions at some other point where so large an out- 
lay of capital would not be required. They ac- 
cordingly proceeded to open a mine on the shore 
of a small cove known as Coal Bay, in Graham's 
Harbor, which lies about twenty miles to the 
southwest of the entrance to Chugachik Bay, and 
for a number of years mined from a single shaft 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 12Z 

all the coal they (Russian-American Company) 
required for use in their steamers. They made 
the mistake, however, of following the seam 
under the bay, and, cutting a stream of water, 
the mine was flooded beyond redemption. Sub- 
sequently, about the year 1851, a company was 
formed in San Francisco, to which the Russian- 
American Company was a party, for the purpose 
of mining coal for the San Francisco market, and 
a new mine near the old one was opened under 
the local management of a German engineer 
named Haltern, and from that time till the trans- 
fer considerable coal was mined, though very 
little of it found its way to San Francisco. The 
American partners of the firm or corporation, 
which was called the American-Russian Com- 
pany, concluded that San Francisco needed more 
ice than coal and the shipment of ice from Wood 
Island was made its principal business. With the 
transfer of the country to the United States, all 
efforts at coal mining ceased and nothing of im- 
portance has ever since been done looking to the 
practical development of the extensive coal meas- 
ures on Cook Inlet and elsewhere in Alaska. 

At Graham Harbor is the old Russian settle- 
ment of Alexandrofsky, where the Alaska Com- 
mercial Company maintains a fur trading station, 
and a few Creoles and some natives reside, the 
former engaged principally in gardening. There 



124 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

is another Creole settlement named Seldovia, a 
few miles north of Graham Harbor, and a num- 
ber of others on the west shore, all of which have 
taken on new life since the influx of the large 
number of gold seekers who for the past two or 
three years have made the Cook Inlet region 
the Mecca of their pilgrimage. 

The natives who inhabit the Cook Inlet coun- 
try, save only a very small portion on each side 
of the entrance, are of the Athabaskan stock, of 
which there are a large number of tribes, clans 
or families in Alaska. These people are gener- 
ally referred to as "natives of the interior," Cook 
Inlet being the only place where they have suc- 
ceeded in obtaining a permanent foothold on the 
coast. They resemble much more closely than 
do any other Alaskan natives the red Indian of 
the plains; they are nomadic in their habits and 
occupy an area of country which embraces more 
than half the territory. Along the coast from 
Cape Elizabeth to Copper River on the east, on 
the islands of the Kadiak Archipelago and along 
the whole water front away around to where the 
eastern boundary line intersects with the Arctic 
Ocean, and on a large part of the Aliaska Penin- 
sula, are found the Eskimos only, the Athabas- 
kans being hemmed into the interior at all points 
save the one named. They are taller and darker 
than their Eskimo neighbors, but these on the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 125 

coast have to a great extent adopted the dress 
and customs of the Creoles, and very little differ- 
ence therefore between them and the coast peo- 
ple further south is distinguishable. History 
credits them, however, with having been an ex- 
ceedingly brave people, who were conquered by 
the Russians only after a great deal of hard fight- 
ing, in which superiority of arms and not supe- 
rior bravery of the invaders compelled their sub- 
mission. The first permanent white settlements 
on Cook Inlet were established as early as 1789. 
With these settlements came the missionaries of 
the Greco-Russian Church, and the Kenaitze 
were converted to Christianity as much from a 
fear of the wrath immediately threatened as from 
that which was-pictured to come in the great 
hereafter. However, they are now as good Chris- 
tians as might reasonably be expected from their 
limited understanding, and in honesty will com- 
pare favorably with most white communities 
w^hose religious professions are much more or- 
thodox. 



126 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Cook Inlet to Unalaska — Shelikoff Strait — Karluk — 
Native People and their Habitations — Great Salmon 
Canning Industry — Shumagin Islands — Unga and its 
Gold Mine — Coal — Beekofsky and Pavloff and Shis- 
haldin Volcanoes — The Aleutian Islands — Unalaska — 
Character and Habits of Native Aleutians — Natural 
Resources — Bogoslov — Volcanic Phenomena. 

Through Shelikoff Strait the body of water 
which separates Kadiak and Afognak Islands 
from that part of the mainland known as the 
Aliaska Peninsula, the western shore of which is 
washed by the waters of Bering Sea, lies the 
route to Karluk, the seat of the largest salmon 
canning industry in Alaska. The scenery 
throughout the length of the strait as viewed 
from the ship is indescribably grand and awe-in- 
spiring. The pen which failed to adequately 
describe the sublimity and grandeur of the 
Mount St. Elias Alps would fail still more in- 
gloriously if it attempted a word picture of 
scenery such as encloses this wide strait; it will 
make no attempt to portray that which is beyond 
the skill of the artist; it must be seen to be prop- 
erly appreciated. 

Karluk is situated at the mouth of a river of 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 127 

the same name, on the southwestern side of 
Kadiak Island. There is no harbor at this point, 
and in case of a blow a vessel must weigh anchor 
and stand away to escape the danger of being 
dashed to pieces on the rocky and precipitous 
shore. Here are located half a dozen or more 
large canneries, the aggregate annual product 
of which is said to exceed half a million cases, 
representing 12,000 tons of the merchantable 
commodity. 

The Karluk River, a beautiful stream of clear, 
blue water, flowing down from a mountain lake 
of the same name, here pours its pellucid tide 
into the strait, a neck of low land lying between 
the salt water and where the river sweeps around 
the base of the steep blufifs on its way to the sea. 
On this neck are located the canneries, board- 
ing-houses, etc., while high upon the opposite 
side of the stream is a native settlement of people 
who call themselves Aleuts, but who are really 
Eskimos, or, as they were originally called, 
Kanaigs. There is another native village two 
miles up the river. That the fish are abundant 
in this stream, which is not more than four rods 
in width, may be inferred from the number and 
capacity of the canneries, together with the fact 
that from it some 300 natives derive their prin- 
cipal food supply. It must be remembered that 
the natives have no other idea of preserving fish 



• 128 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

than by drying them in the sun, and that it takes 
ten pounds of fresh fish to make one of dry. The 
amount of fish thus prepared averages about four 
hundred pounds to the family, equal to 4,000 
pounds of fresh fish. There are in the native set- 
tlements at Karluk at least 150 families, whose 
consumption would, according to the foregoing 
estimate, amount to 600,000 pounds of fresh 
fish. 

There is a considerable permanent white popu- 
lation at Karluk, a number of stores, and during 
the canning season the population is augmented 
by as many more whites and several hundred 
Chinamen, who come up from San Francisco in 
the early summer and return thence in the fall. 
The population of the two native villages is in 
the neighborhood of 500. The habitations of 
the natives are called barrabaras, a Russian word, 
which in the singular means a hut. These dwell- 
ings are more than half underground. An ex- 
cavation of the desired size is first made, on the 
inside of which rows of posts of equal height are 
set closely together, the tops projecting not more 
than a couple of feet above the surface of the 
ground. On these rafters are placed, and the 
whole of the structure, including the roof, cov- 
ered over with sod to the thickness of a foot or 
more. The material used in the frame is most 
generally driftwood, but sometimes the ribs of 




A MOUNTAIN TRAIL, 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 1^9 

the whale are made to answer the purpose. A 
small opening is always left in the roof, which 
answers the double purpose of window and chim- 
ney. When not needed as a smoke escape or for 
ventilation, it is closed with a frame over which 
a thin and transparent covering of seal bladder 
is stretched. The entrance is generally in the 
shape of a low, narrow, underground passage, 
from eight to ten feet in length, and through 
which one can only pass on his hands and knees. 
The interior generally consists of one common 
apartment or living room, in which the cooking 
is done, and three or four small sleeping rooms, 
generally in the form of additions to the main 
hut. These latter are usually so low that a 
person of ordinary height cannot stand upright 
within them; they are lighted by a small window 
made of bladder, placed either in the roof or side. 
A village made up of these barrabaras seen from 
a distance closely resembles a collection of the 
same number of so-called houses of the prairie 
dog; certainly at first sight they would not be 
thought of as being human habitations. 

These native people are possessed of consid- 
erable natural intelligence, but are exceedingly 
filthy in their persons and habitations. Never- 
theless, they are not a bad-looking people phy- 
sically, and aside from their evident hatred of 
that virtue which is said to rank next to godli- 



130 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ness, practice few, if any, bad habits, save those 
imbibed from the whites. They are inordinately 
fond of whisky, of the quaHty of which they judge 
by the amount of intoxication it will effect, and 
the nearer it approaches to hell-fire the better 
they like it. 

Again under way, we pass in due time the 
Semidi Islands, and rounding the Shumagin 
group, finally land at Unga, a village pleasantly 
situated on an island of the same name. This is 
the largest island of the Shumagin group, and 
the most westerly, a channel only six miles wide 
lying between it and the mainland. This group 
embraces a large number of islands, that of Pop- 
off, upon which the principal cod fishing stations 
a|*e located, lying immediately to the east of 
Unga and separated from it by a narrow channel. 
Unga is about twenty-six miles in length from 
north to south, and about half that in width. A 
range of mountains extends along the south 
coast, but to the north and west the land lies in 
a broad, comparatively level plain, which ends 
in a low shore on the strait lying between it and 
the Aliaska Peninsula. 

The Aliaska Peninsula is a most remarkable 
tongue of land, the base or inner end of which is 
marked by the entrance to Cook Inlet on the east 
and the head of Bristol Bay on the west, from 
which opposite points it extends in a southwest- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 131 

erly direction a distance of nearly 500 miles to the 
Strait of Issannakh, which separates it from Uni- 
mak, the easternmost of the Aleutian Islands; its 
breadth diminishes from over a hundred miles 
in the north to not more than twenty-five miles 
in the southwest, the interior being marked by a 
high mountain range running parallel with the 
opposite coasts, which last are indented by nu- 
merous bays and inlets. In front of this penin- 
sula on the south and east lie the Kadiak, Semidi 
and Shumagin groups, with numerous other de- 
tached islands scattered all along the coast. 

The Island of Unga was once a very important 
station of the Russian-American Company, the 
vessels belonging to which were most generally 
laid up for the winter in a safe harbor at its north- 
ern end, while a trading station at which a great 
many valuable furs were collected was maintained 
at what is now the village of Unga, located on a 
snug little indentation near the southeast point 
of the island. The village consists of about seven- 
ty-five frame houses, some of those belonging to 
independent white hunters being of a rather neat 
and substantial character; the others are occu- 
pied by Creole and Aleut hunters. There are 
more white people at Unga and in its vicinity 
than at any other point in southwestern Alaska; 
aside from the white hunters of the sea otter, the 
cod fisheries afford employment to a consider- 



132 



ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



able number, while in the immediate neighbor- 
hood of the village is the mine and mill of the 
Apollo Consolidated Mining Company, at which 
a large number of men are employed. The 
Apollo Company operates a forty-stamp mill, and 
claims to be turning out a monthly product of 
$35,000 in gold bullion. 

The white hunters are generally married to 
Creole or Aleut women. The law prohibits the 
killing of any fur-bearing animals in Alaska by 
any but natives, and the regulations of the Treas- 
ury Department recognize as natives white men 
who have married native women; hence, per- 
haps, these marriages — and these, to their credit 
be it said — have, at their own cost and expense, 
erected a very neat building for the accommoda- 
tion of the government school. 

There is no timber on the island, but there is 
an abundance of coal, which, though not, per- 
haps, of the best quality, answers all domestic 
purposes. Coal is also found in Pavloff and Coal 
Bays, on the east side of the mainland, to the 
southwest of Unga, at Port Moeller and Ugashik, 
on the west side of the Aliaska Peninsula, and at 
Coal Bay to the northeastward — the application 
of the same name to a number of these indenta- 
tions being suggestive of the frequent occur- 
rence of coal seams along the coast of the Penin- 
sula, as well as in Cook Inlet. Though, perhaps, 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 133 

not of sufficiently good quality to justify long 
transportation, there can be no question that 
these coal measures will prove of great economic 
value as a material aid to the future progress and 
development of the natural resources of the ad- 
jacent sections. 

Belkofsky is located on the ocean side of the 
Aliaska Peninsula, not over fifty miles from its 
southwestern extremity, and is a very neat, tidy 
little hamlet of perhaps seventy-five frame 
houses. It is beautifully located on an elevated 
plateau, back of which at no great distance is a 
towering range of mountains covered to the very 
summit with a natural vestment which would de- 
light the soul of the most enthusiastic of Erin's 
sons. It is an important station of the Alaska 
Commercial Company, and the residence of a 
priest of the Greco-Russian church, which has 
erected at this point the finest church edifice, ex- 
cept as to interior embellishments, in Alaska. The 
population embraces about an equal number of 
Creoles and Aleuts, there not being to exceed 
twenty white people in the place. The Creoles and 
Aleuts are principally sea otter hunters, Belkof- 
sky being the point from which the largest num- 
ber of these skins are obtained, notwithstanding 
the fact that the best hunting grounds lie at a 
considerable distance from it. The people keep 
a considerable herd of cattle, the adjacent coun^ 



134 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

try furnishing a wide range of excellent grazing 
lands, upon which there is a natural growth of 
wild grasses, the luxuriance of which never had 
an equal on the richest prairies of Illinois or Iowa. 
Here, as at Unga, and, indeed, upon nearly all 
the islands of southwestern Alaska, there is a 
good soil; turnips and potatoes do well, and 
there is reason to believe that most of the veget- 
ables can be grown to perfection if properly 
planted and cultivated. There are excellent 
ranges for sheep as well as cattle, both of which 
could be kept at little expense, other than that 
involved in the cost of sheds to shelter them 
during a part of the winter months. 

During the run from Unga to Belkofsky, a 
distance of about seventy miles, the traveler is 
favored with a splendid view of Pavloff volcano, 
except that the crater is apt to be enveloped in 
a fleecy white cloud, through which the smoke 
will be seen to ascend in heavy, black puffs, giv- 
ing ample evidence of the fires raging within the 
confines of the majestic peak, which rises to a 
great height above the level of the sea. Skirting 
the east coast of Unimak Island, on the way to 
Unalaska, we catch an occasional glimpse of 
Mount Shishaldin, a volcanic peak more or less 
active, and credited with an elevation of 10,000 
feet. This, with other mountains of lesser height, 
render Unimak visible for a long distance out on 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 135 

the ocean, and mark the entrance to the principal 
eastern pass into Bering Sea. The pass lies be- 
tween the islands of Unimak on the northeast, 
and Ugamok, Tigalda and Akun on the south- 
west, but the most direct route to Unalaska is 
through the narrower and more dangerous chan- 
nel known as Akutan Pass, which lies between 
the island of that name and Unalaska. 

By the time he has arrived at Unalaska, the 
reader who is accompanying the author will have 
just begun to appreciate the vast extent of the 
Alaskan sea coast as compared with that of the 
Atlantic, Lake, Gulf and Pacific states. The 
distance across the continent in a straight line 
from Eastport, Me., to Astoria, Ore., is, in round 
figures, 2,700 miles; Astoria is in longitude about 
123 degrees west, and Sitka 1,000 miles to the 
northward, is in longitude 135 degrees, while the 
193rd degree marks the western boundary of 
Alaska. Sailing west by south from. Sitka, 
it is nearly, if not quite, 1,500 miles to Unalaska, 
and from thence at least 1,000 miles due west to 
the boundary line, though our most westerly 
landed possession, the Island of Attn, falls short 
of that distance by about 100 miles. Thus, if he 
cares to make the comparison, the reader will 
find that, should he start from the most easterly 
extremity of the United States and travel in a 
straight line to a directly opposite point in Ore- 



136 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

gon, he could yet continue on 3,000 miles further 
and at the end of that distance still find himself 
at home in his own country. Traveling to the 
northward and passing the 600 miles of British 
coast, he would have to cover a distance of not 
less than 4,000 miles before reaching the most 
northerly point of Alaska. A glance at the map 
will disclose the fact that when at Unalaska he 
is very nearly in the same longitude with East 
Cape, the most easterly point of Asia, beyond 
which our posessions extend a distance of nearly 
900 miles. 

Unimak is the most easterly of the great 
Aleutian chain of islands, and is separated from 
the mainland by the unnavigable strait of Issan- 
nakh, with Akun, Ugamok, Tigalda, Akutan, 
Avatanak, Unalga, and a number of smaller is- 
lands lying between it and Unalaska, and among 
which last are three navigable, though narrow, 
passes from the Pacific Ocean to Bering Sea. 
Extending around from Issannakh Strait to the 
south and west, with a curve of about three de- 
grees and ending in very nearly the same latitude, 
is the Aleutian chain of more than a hundred 
islands, of which, however, not more than fifty 
are designated on the charts. In all this distance 
the islands either crowd so closely upon each 
other, or else are separated by such shallow 
waters, that in addition to the passes named 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 137 

there are only three channels through which a 
ship can be safely navigated — two of these being 
quite narrow and very seldom used. The largest 
of these islands west of Ounalaska are Umnak, 
Atka, Adahk, Tanaga, Amchitka and Attn, the 
whole embracing a geographical area of about 
15,000 square miles. 

The village of Illiliuk, or Unalaska, as it is 
more generally known, consists of about sixty 
frame buildings, a few of quite respectable size 
and outward appearance, but by far the larger 
number being one-story ten-by-twelve wooden 
shells, built or purchased by the Alaska Com- 
mercial Company, and occupied by its Aleut 
hunters and employes free of rent, and perhaps 
between forty and fifty barrabaras, also occupied 
by the Aleuts. Aside from the warehouses and 
the company's office and store buildings, there 
are, perhaps, half a dozen neat frame buildings, 
and as many more not so neat, which are occu- 
pied by Creole families, most of whom are rea- 
sonably well-to-do, considering their isolation 
from the world and the small opportunities af- 
forded them. 

Most of the Aleut residents live in barrabaras, 
to which they give the preference over the or- 
dinary frame house, as being more comfortable 
both in winter and summer. These Aleuts are 
in all respects superior to any of the native people 



138 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

we have thus far met with. They are a naturally 
bright and quick-witted people, with a Japanese 
cast of features, and of indubitably Asiatic ori- 
gin. History relates that when the Russians 
first came among them, in the first half of the 
last century, they were a brave and warlike peo- 
ple, not more courageous in battle, however, 
than kind and hospitable to strangers. They 
received the Russians kindly and maintained 
friendly and amicable relations with them for 
several years after their arrival, submitting pa- 
tiently to demands they might have justly re- 
sented as an infringement upon their rights, un- 
til the invaders, encouraged by a patient forbear- 
ance which was construed into a passive submis- 
sion born of fear and cowardice, proceeding from 
bad to worse, by their oppressive and outrageous 
conduct, finally forced them to accept the alter- 
native of war or absolute slavery. Accordingly, 
upon a given signal, the people of all the villages 
sprang to arms, and of all their oppressors only 
four escaped slaughter. But the Russians came 
again, and in greater numbers, and after years of 
bloodshed the conquest of Unalaska, and of the 
whole Aleutian chain, was effected, and the rem- 
nants of their people reduced to a state of servi- 
tude bordering on abject slavery. Before the 
conquest there were many populous villages on 
Unalaska Island, and both Russian and Aleut 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 139 

authorities agree in the statement that in what 
is now known as the Unalaska district (the Aleu- 
tian Islands) there were 120 villages, with a popu- 
lation variously estimated at from 15,000 to 
25,000. Now there are in the same district only 
ten villages and 1,000 people, exclusive of whites, 
of whom 300 are Creoles and 700 Aleuts. No 
other comment as to the treatment of these peo- 
ple in the past is necessary. From a brave and 
warlike people they have been transformed by 
more than a century of abuse and oppression 
into timid, helpless dependents upon the will of 
those they have come to regard as their masters. 
In some respects their condition is far better than 
under the old Russian regime; yet the dispas- 
sionate observeT among them will scarcely have 
the hardihood to aver that they are possessed of 
any rights which the white man is bound to 
respect. 

The Island of Unalaska is about 125 miles 
long, from thirty to fifty wide, and the largest 
and most important of the Aleutian chain. There 
are four villages on the island, as stated — Illiliuk 
(Unalaska), Makushin, Kashiginsk and Cher- 
noosk, the first in the north, the second two on 
the west side, and the last at the south end. They 
are all inhabited by sea otter hunters, their ag- 
gregate population, exclusive of thirty or forty 
white men, numbering only 450 persons. There 



140 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

are three separate groups . of mountains on the 
island — the Makushin group of two chains, run- 
ning parallel with each other between the bay of 
the same name and Illiliuk Harbor, and in one 
of which is a volcanic peak 5,000 feet in height, 
and the Otter and Kashiginsk Mountains, ex- 
tending through the central and southern sec- 
tions of the island. The highest peaks of these 
mountain ranges are never without their caps of 
snow,though their sides are covered as with a car- 
peting of the richest colors. The Makushin vol- 
cano stands about twenty miles north of the vil- 
lage of Unalaska, and is almost a perfect cone 
in shape, with the crater located in the apex. 
No flames or lava have been emitted by this 
volcano within the memory of any of the resi- 
dents of the island, but smoke still issues from 
its crater at brief intervals, frequently accom- 
panied by subterranean noises, as if in premoni- 
tion of an earthquake held in reserve. The geo- 
logical formation consists of granite, porphyry, 
slate and basalt, while there are on the island 
several hot springs, the waters of which are said 
to possess great curative properties. There is 
no timber on the island, but the deficiency in that 
respect is offset by a wealth of nutritious wild 
grasses in the valleys and on the mountain 
slopes, sufficient to the sustenance of as large 
herds of sheep as could be maintained elsewhere 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 141 

on an acreage equal to the whole area of the 
island. The winters are not nearly so severe as 
those of the cattle growing states of the north- 
west, the temperature rarely faUing as low as lo 
degrees, and the fair inference is that cattle and 
sheep could be kept at less expense and with 
lower percentage of loss than in either Montana 
or the Dakotas. 

There is an abundance of fish in the bays and 
rivers of Unalaska Island — salmon, cod, halibut, 
and a species of mackerel predominating. For- 
merly, in the fall of the year, large numbers of 
young seals found their way into the harbor, and 
were killed as much for their flesh as for their 
skins, the meat of the young seal being con- 
sidered rather more of a luxury than a staple 
article of food by the Aleut people. 

There are no fur-bearing animals of conse- 
quence on the island, but Unalaska is, neverthe- 
less, the center of the fur trade from the Shum- 
agin Islands on the east to Attn, the most west- 
erly of the Aleutian chain. It is the port of entry 
for all of western Alaska, and is supplied with 
wharves and other commercial facilities, being 
the headquarters of a church district. Nearly 
all the valuable furs — sea otter, black, cross and 
red foxes — secured on all the islands west of 
Kadiak are collected here for shipment to San 
Francisco, the business up to a few years ago 



4ii 



142 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

being exclusively controlled by the Alaska Com- 
mercial Company, which had a lease of the seal 
islands, and by reason thereof a monopoly of the 
entire fur trade of all Alaska. The best sea otter 
hunting grounds is at Sannahk Island, over a 
hundred miles northeast of Unalaska, though 
there are other islands and reefs frequented by 
the hunters. To Sannahk principally, however, 

^jUli the Aleut hunters are conveyed by one of the 

company's vessels, with their bidarkas, and there 
they are left to practice their craft during an 
entire season. The company supplies them with 
provisions, and to make certain of all the peltry 
secured, a sub-agent is left with the party, who 
receives the skins as fast as they are taken, and 

^imii iot which settlement and payment is made when 

the party returns to headquarters. By such pre- 
caution the company succeeds in getting all the 
skins, even those designed by the hunters for the 
priest or church, for which last they merely pay 
the priest instead of the original owner. 

The native Aleuts being practically a civilized 
people, there is little to be said concerning their 
customs and habits. They are all followers of 
the Greco-Russian church, and are Christians 
by profession, whatever they may be in practice; 
but it is fair to say that, leaving their one beset- 
ting vice of drunkenness out of the question, 
they are neither better nor worse than an aver- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 143 

age white community of the same size — certainly 
much better than some of the latter which might 
here be designated. Through long intercourse 
with the whites, they have imbibed artificial 
tastes, and acquired artificial wants; instead of 
the bird or seal skin parkas of their ancestors, 
the men now affect broadcloth coats, starched 
shirts and calf-skin boots, while the white ladies 
of eastern cities are not more intent upon secur- 
ing the latest Paris fashions than are the dusky 
maids and matrons of Unalaska on the alert for 
the latest styles from San Francisco. And what 
is true as to dress is equally true in regard to their 
physical tastes and wants, which have been en- 
larged just in proportion as they have become 
more and more civilized; having adopted the 
style and dress of white men and women, they 
feel that they must live like white people, eat 
what white people eat, and drink what they drink, 
especially if the white man gives whisky the pref- 
erence over water. In consequence of all this, 
the men are compelled to earn more than would 
have insured to their fathers a comfortable and 
happy existence. So the majority of them go 
down to the sea in their frail bidarkas to hunt 
the sea otter, the most valuable of all the fur- 
bearing animals in Alaska. OhiAj^ ma'^^^Aa^ 

The geological phenomena of most the islands 
and mainland of southwestern Alaska afford 



Ill 



144 



- ALASKA: ITS HISTORY. 



abundant evidence of volcanic origin or eleva- 
tion. The records give definite information of 
volcanic activity on no less than twenty-five of 
the Aleutian islands, and enumerate about sixty 
craters, all told, in the mountain peaks and 
ranges of Alaska. Some of these are still smok- 
ing, and two or three in occasional eruption. 
From Mount Wrangell, which is believed to be 
the highest mountain in North America, if not 
in the western hemisphere, and which is on the 
mainland, in longitude 145 degrees, to the Com- 
mander Islands, beyond our western boundary, 
there is a continuous chain of volcanoes, each 
and all of which have been active at some period 
since the advent of the Russians in 1743. One 
of the ablest Russian scientists, in a treatise of 
the volcanic character of this region, advances 
the theory that this long extended chain of vol- 
canoes proves the existence of a subterranean 
channel of lava, which finds its outlet first 
through one crater and then through another. 
However this may be, there are frequent volcanic 
disturbances, indicated by a rumbling and quak- 
ing of the earth, more or less startling, and it 
must be admitted that there is no more exten- 
sive theater of volcanic activity known than 
that of the Aliaska Peninsula, the west coast of 
Cook Inlet, and the Aleutian Islands. 

One remarkable occurrence which history re- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 145 

cords as having taken place in 1796, taken in 
connection with what has since happened, would 
seem to fully confirm the theory of the Russian 
scientist, that there is a subterranean channel 
between the long line of craters referred to, the 
overburden of lava flowing in which sometimes 
forces for itself a new outlet. To the westward 
of Unalaska, and not more than a dozen miles 
from the northeast end of Umnak, is located the 
small island of Bogoslov. History has it that on 
the 1 8th day of May, 1796, a Russian trader 
named Krukof was stopping temporarily on the 
northeast end of Umnak, being detained there 
by thick and stormy weather, accompanied by 
indications of volcanic disturbance. On the 
morning of the 19th the storm abated, the clouds 
cleared away, and he saw at some distance off a 
column of smoke arising out of the sea. To- 
ward evening a black object was visible under 
the smoke, and during the night flames ascend- 
ing heavenward were of such volume and bril- 
liancy as to convert night into the light of day. 
At the same time an earthquake, with thunder- 
ing noise, shook the whole island, from which 
the trader was observing the, to him, unaccount- 
able phenomenon, while rocks were occasionally 
thrown across the sea, a distance of ten or twelve 
miles from what afterwards was found to be the 

crater of a new volcano. On the morning of the 
10 



146 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

third day the earthquake ceased, the flames sub- 
sided, and a newly created island loomed- up in 
the shape of a cone. A month later the trader 
found the peak considerably higher and still 
emitting fire and ashes, but very little flame; 
later the flames died out altogether, and vol- 
canic action was confined to the emission of 
smoke and steam. In 1800 it had ceased to 
smoke, but eight years after its first appearance 
some hunters, visiting its shore, found the waters 
of the sea immediately surrounding it still warm, 
and the solid rock formation too hot to permit 
a landing. A few years later, however, its rocks 
and cliffs had cooled sufficiently to attract a 
large number of sea lions, with whom it was for 
a long time afterwards a favorite resort. It con- 
tinued to gradually increase in both height and 
circumference until 1823, when it had attained 
a height of a thousand feet or more. From and 
after that year it gradually diminished in height, 
and seemed to be sinking back into the depths 
of the sea, until a few years ago, when it raised 
another commotion by firing up anew, and in 
a single night disappeared altogether, another 
islet of about the same circumference making 
its appearance about two miles distant from 
where the original Bogoslov had stood for three- 
quarters of a century. The new Bogoslov is 
gradually rising, but as yet presents a compara- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 147 

tively flat surface, at an elevation of not more 
than 200 feet above the sea level, and from it 
there is a constant emission of steam and smoke. 
This volcanic phenomenon, in the opinion of 
many scientific men, is indicative of the fact that 
most of the Aleutian Islands owe their origin 
more to gradual elevation than to violent erup- 
tion, but neither the old nor the new Bogoslov 
resulted from the latter cause — the piling up of 
lava and debris thrown out through craters — 
the first one rising slowly and gradually until it 
attained its greatest elevation, a history which 
is being repeated by its successor. Indeed, it is 
a question if the whole eastern half of Bering Sea 
is not steadily decreasing in depth, owing to a 
gradual elevation of its bottom; that is the 
theory advanced by some, while others claim 
that its lessening depth is wholly due to the de- 
position of sediment brought down by the great 
roaring floods of the Yukon and other rivers 
emptying into it. To whatever cause it may be 
ascribed, the eastern part of the sea appears to 
be gradually shoaling, with every prospect of its 
ultimately becoming an archipelago or a part 
of the mainland. The large islands of St. 
Mathew and St. Michael, the first named lOO 
miles off the mainland, afford conclusive evi- 
dence of having been formed by accumulations 
of lava during eruptions, as do also the Pryb- 



148 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ilov group, and some others, the large majority 
of islands, however, having come through the 
process of gradual elevation. The western part 
of the sea has a uniform depth of loo fathoms 
or more, the bottom gradually shelving upwards 
until in the eastern half there are but few places 
where it is safe for a vessel of ordinary draft 
to approach nearer than fifty miles to the shore. 
The question of when a large portion of Bering 
Sea will be dry land would seem to be one of 
not more than a century of time at most. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 149 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Seal Islands — The Rookeries — How the Seals are 
Killed — St. Paul Village — Nushegak River — Home of 
the King Salmon — Prolific Fishery — Fort Alexander 
— Eskimos, Their Habits and Customs — The Kas- 
hiina — Physical Character of Nushegak Region — Lux- 
uriant Vegetation — The Kuskokwim — Inviting Field 
for Mineral Exploration, 

Assuming that we have the permission of the 
government, or of the agent of the corporate 
monopoly created and fostered by it, we may 
now make a visit to the Prybiloff, or, as they are 
more generally styled, the Seal Islands. There 
are four islands in this group — St. Paul, St. 
George,' Walrus and Otter — St. Paul being the 
largest and most northerly, and distant from Un- 
alaska about 230 miles. It is upon this island 
that the seals have heretofore been wont to con- 
gregate in by far the largest numbers, and upon 
which the lessees have taken more than two- 
thirds of the skins obtained. The lessee Corpor- 
ation — North-American Commercial Company 
— has its headquarters at Dutch Harbor, near 
Unalaska, where it has erected wharves and sub- 
stantial buildings, including a coaling station, 
from which government steamers are supplied 



150 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

with fuel when cruising in Bering Sea and the 
Arctic Ocean. 

The Island of St. Paul is, at its greatest length, 
from southwest to northeast, thirteen miles long, 
about six miles wide at points of greatest width, 
and has something over forty miles of coast, 
about one-half of which is, or was at one time, 
occupied by the seals. It is evidently of vol- 
canic origin, one or two extinct craters marking 
the highest ridges, which rise to a height of 600 
or 800 feet in the interior, the grounds upon 
which the seals land being a volcanic tufa, thickly 
strewn with blocks of lava. There are no harbors 
in the island where ships can lie in safety during 
a storm, except it be at the village, where the 
anchorage, about a mile off shore, is compara- 
tively safe, except when there is a strong blow 
from the south. The same disadvantages exist 
at the other islands of the group, even to a 
greater extent. 

The village of St. Paul lies on the south slope 
of a hill which drops from an elevation of 100 
feet or more gradually down to the beach^ along 
which there is a single terraced street running 
east and west, upon which the houses are placed, 
all facing to the north, the upper row fronting 
upon the rear of the one below. There are be- 
tween eighty and a hundred native houses, all 
one-story frame buildings, set sufficiently far 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 151 

apart from each other to insure safety from fire, 
all presenting a neat, tidy exterior, and all well 
and cleanly kept on the inside. These houses 
were built by the company for the use of its na- 
tive employes, by whom they are occupied with- 
out other consideration than that they shall be 
kept clean. In addition to these there are ten or 
twelve company buildings, large and small, in- 
cluding the agent's residence, company's store, 
salting house, workshop, etc. Then there is the 
Greco-Russian church, a very neat structure, 
with well-kept grounds; the priest's residence, 
the office and residence of the treasury agent, 
and last, but not least, the best appointed school 
house in the territory, with one or two excep- 
tions. The village as a whole is a very pretty 
one: the streets are hard and dry, and the sani- 
tary conditions are better than those usually en- 
forced in regularly incorporated well-governed 
eastern towns and cities. 

The resident inhabitants of St. Paul and St. 
George are Aleuts. When the islands were first 
discovered by the Russians in 1786, they were 
uninhabited; for the purpose of killing the seals 
and curing the skins, Aleuts were imported and 
settled at several points, both on St. George and 
St. Paul, of whom some of those still residents 
of the islands are the descendants. By far the 
larger number, however, were taken there by the 



152 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Alaska Commercial Company after it obtained 
the lease of the islands, a few others being car- 
ried up every spring from Unalaska and returned 
home again when the killing season is ended. 
What has been written concerning the natives 
of Unalaska will apply equally as well to their 
brethren in the Seal Islands. They are practi- 
cally a civilized people, not in the sense of being 
fully educated, but in that they are converts to 
the Christian religion, and have adopted civil- 
ized ways in the matter of dress and mode of liv- 
ing. Quite a number among them can speak 
the English language fluently, while a few can 
both read and write in Russian. They are devout 
members of the Greco-Russian church, and very 
polite and civil. 

Prior to the depletion of the seal herd, which 
led to a limitation of the number of seals allowed 
to be killed annually to a mere fraction of the 
maximum limit, the few people on St. Paul and 
St. George earned larger wages than are usually 
paid to the same number of skilled mechanics in 
the States, and the more provident among them 
had very considerable amounts standing to their 
credit on the company's books, upon which 
they were allowed interest at the rate of four per 
cent. They were paid 40 cents for each and 
every seal killed and flayed, at which rate, prior 
to the limitation of the number allowed to be 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 153 

taken to less than 100,000, gave them an aggre- 
gate of $40,000 for not more than three months' 
work. 

The permanent population of St. Paul, exclu- 
sive of the few white men employed by the com- 
pany, the priest and government agents, does 
not exceed 200 men, women and children, that 
of St. George being less by at least one-half. 
Not more than one-fourth are adult males. 
There is no business other than sealing transact- 
ed on the islands; no commerce, no trade, ex- 
cept that carried on by the company, and which 
extends only to supplying the few residents with 
food and supplies, at much more reasonable 
prices than have as yet obtained anywhere 
else in Alaska. The natives draw cash for their 
labor, and pay cash for what they buy at the 
store, the only restriction being that each and 
every one is required to leave with the company 
a sufficient amount of his earnings to insure sub- 
sistence through a long period of idleness. If 
the sealers do any extra work, they are paid for 
it; there are a great many blue and white foxes 
on St. Paul, of which they are permitted to trap 
not to exceed 500 during the winter, and for the 
pelts of which the company pays them each forty 
and sixty cents respectively. There is no gar- 
dening, though some parts of the island are cov- 
ered with a heavy vegetation, and there is a soil 



154 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

in which some kinds of vegetables might be 
grown, and nowhere can a greater profusion of 
wild flowers be seen than on some of the grassy 
slopes of St. Paul, but there are no trees, not 
even a shrub. 

The seals begin to arrive at the islands about 
May I, a few bulls constituting the advance. 
These do not land at first, but swim idly about 
for some days, as if inspecting the land which 
they desire to preempt, or possibly waiting for 
the arrival of reinforcements. From the date of 
the first arrival, if the weather be clear, until the 
first of June, the number is not materially in- 
creased; but if the summer fogs set in earlier, 
then the bull seals begin to come by the thousand, 
and lose no time in selecting and locating upon 
suitable grounds, which they guard and hold 
against all new comers till the cows arrive, from 
two to three weeks later. Those that come first 
locate immediately upon the water line of the 
breeding ground, and between themselves and 
the new comers there is a constant fight for pos- 
session; those that come latest, being the fresh- 
est and strongest, generally driving those that 
preceded them further back. This continues till 
the cows arrive, every bull having in the mean- 
time been obliged to fight a dozen or more bat- 
tles in order to maintain the ground he has 
chosen, the weaker ones having been driven from 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 155 

place to place until all have been located. These 
seal claims, or preemptions, may be said to cover 
a space from six to eight feet square, and the 
pre-emptor, unless driven off by a covetous bull 
stronger than himself, never leaves his claim for 
a single instant until the end of the rutting sea- 
son, which continues from the ist of July to the 
15th of August. From the time he hauls out in 
May, and certainly not later than June i, he fasts 
continually until the breaking up of his harem in 
August; weighing from 400 to 600 pounds when 
he comes out of the water, he goes back into it 
a mere skeleton, and very seldom returns to land 
during the same season. The cows begin to 
come in numbers about the 20th of June, and 
before the middle of July the harems are filled, 
each bull taking to himself all the way from, ten 
to forty cows. The female seals give birth to their 
young soon after their arrival, bearing a single 
pup each. By the middle of September the rook- 
eries are entirely broken up, the young seals have 
learned to swim, and by the end of November 
they have, as a rule, all departed from the island. 
Whence they come and where they go is a 
mooted question. 

• The killing of female seals is prohibited by law, 
and of the males those of the age of from two 
to four years are considered the most desirable, 
the three and four-year-old ones having the 



156 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

thickest and finest fur. The male seals who take 
and hold possession of the rookeries are never 
less than six years of age, the younger ones be- 
ing wholly excluded from the breeding grounds. 
As a consequence, the young male seals are com- 
pelled to haul out in places wholly separate and 
apart, sometimes miles away from the rookeries. 
It is these seals that are doomed to slaughter; 
those on the breeding grounds are never dis- 
turbed. During May and June large herds of the 
young "bachelor" seals haul up on land, not very 
far from the water's edge, when a number of na- 
tives quickly and quietly run along between the 
surf and the sleeping seals, who, being startled 
and seeing their retreat to the water cut off, turn 
and scramble as rapidly as they can further back 
on the land. The Aleuts then walk leisurely on 
the flanks and in the rear of the drove thus se- 
cured and drive it possibly a mile or more to the 
killing grounds. If the weather is cool, they can 
be driven at the rate of half a mile an hour, only 
three or four men being required to control the 
movements of as many thousands. These drives 
are always made early in the morning, and if the 
drive is a long one the seals are frequently per- 
mitted to halt and rest; heating them injures 
the fur. The killing grounds are located near the 
salting houses, which have been built at points 
most convenient for handling and shipping the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 157 

skins, and all the killing is done upon them so 
as not to disturb the other seals, as well as to 
save labor. The driving is the first operation, 
the seals suitable for killing being, in the man- 
ner already stated, readily collected into droves 
by getting between them and the water, when 
they are driven as easily, though not so rapidly, 
as a flock of sheep. When on a drive, the seals 
move in a clumsy gallop, raising their bellies 
entirely from the ground upon their flippers or 
legs, and, strange as it may seem, they can get 
over the ground with a celerity almost equaling 
that of a greyhound. Great care is taken, how- 
ever, not to hurry them, for if driven too fast 
they are apt to crowd and bite each other, thus 
injuring the skins, if indeed they are not over- 
heated, which is equally as bad. After reaching 
the killing grounds they are allowed to rest a 
sufficient length of time to cool off, after which 
the killing commences. The seals in the drives 
vary in number, according as there may be few 
or many upon the hauling ground from which 
they are driven — there may be 500 or there may 
be as many thousands. In every drive there are 
invariably some seals that are either so large or 
so small that their skins are not desirable, and 
all these are singled out and permitted to escape 
back to the water. The drive having arrived at 
the killing grounds and the herd having had 



158 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

time to cool off sufficiently, the killing and skin- 
ning gang at once begin the work of slaughter. 
A number of men, each armed with a stout hick- 
ory club five or six feet long, and, perhaps, three 
inches thick at the heaviest or outer end, and 
half that where held in the hand, step into the 
herd and drive out from it from fifty to 150 seals 
at a time, as may be most convenient, and driv- 
ing them apart from the main body, form what 
they call a "pod." Circling around this pod they 
narrow it down to a huddle, until the seals are 
within reach of their clubs. Their practiced eyes 
tell them at a glance which of the seals, if any, 
have been bitten, or which are too old and which 
too young, and in less time than it takes to write 
it every desirable seal receives a blow which stuns 
if it does not kill outright. It sometimes requires 
more than one blow to effect the desired purpose, 
and occasionally an ineligible seal receives a 
glancing blow which sends him galloping around 
the pod in either a frantic effort to escape, or 
with a desire to get at his assailant. All the de- 
sirable seals having thus been clubbed to death 
or into insensibility, those that have been spared 
are urged away, if they do not immediately go 
of their own accord, and, as a matter of course, 
make their way back to the water at the nearest 
point. Almost before the clubs have ceased to 
fall on the heads of the seals in the first pod, 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 159 

another gang of men begin to drag the insensible 
bodies out from where they are lying, one on 
top of the other, and, placing them on their backs 
so that they do not touch each other, another 
follows with a knife, which he drives into the 
heart of the animal; this spreading out and 
"sticking" of the seals without delay being done 
not only to prevent a "heating", which causes 
the hair and fur to peel off, thus rendering the 
skins worthless, but to insure the men against 
being bitten by seals that have only been half 
killed, and which, being given time, are apt to 
rouse up and snap viciously at the hands or legs 
of the person who attempts to take hold and turn 
them over. The men are frequently bitten in 
this way, but never with any serious result. Close 
after the bleeding comes the skinning, and the 
celerity with which a practiced Aleut disrobes a 
seal is really marvelous. The Aleut who is unable 
to flay a seal in less than three minutes is not 
considered an expert, and is classed third or 
fourth in the division of earnings. 

A drive having thus been disposed of, the skins 
are taken to the salting house, which is parti- 
tioned off into large bins called kenches, into 
which they are placed, fur side down, with a 
layer of salt between, and where they become 
sufficiently cured in a week's time. They are 
then taken from the kenches and piled up into 



160 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

what are called "books," with the addition of 
more salt, and then finally prepared for shipment 
by rolling them up and tying them into com- 
pact bundles, each bundle containing two skins. 
At the close of the season they are shipped to 
San Francisco, and thence to London, where 
they are dressed, plucked and dyed, and the 
larger part returned to this country, a skin, the 
actual cost of which at the islands cannot ex- 
ceed $15, having been increased to a market 
value of not less than $75. These are to be seen 
in the beautiful garments worn by wealthy and 
fashionable ladies, the policy of the government 
in giving to a single corporation an absolute 
r^ionopoly of the fur seal business having placed 
the price of such luxurious outer garments be- 
yond the reach of ordinary well-to-do people. 

The Nushegak is one of the great rivers of 
Alaska. It has its source in a lake of the same 
name, and empties into Bristol Bay, a not very 
deep triangular indentation of the coast on the 
west side of the Aliaska Peninsula. This river, 
at its mouth, and for forty to fifty miles above, 
is at least twenty miles in width, beyond which 
it narrows down to ten and then to six at the 
settlement of the same name, but which is desig- 
nated on all the maps as Fort Alexander. The 
river is full of sand bars and difBcult to navigate 
by pilots not familiar with its intricate channel. 



m 



/ 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 161 

which hugs first one bank and then the other. 
Heavy draft vessels do, however, make their 
way as far as Nushegak, and some distance be- 
yond, in all about one hundred miles above the 
mouth. 

Nushegak, or Fort Alexander, is a station of 
the Alaska Commercial Company, and the head- 
quarters of the Kuskokwin district of the Greco- 
Russian church, and was, during the Russian 
regime, a fortified post of considerable import- 
ance. It was the point at which all the furs ob- 
tained from all that large part of the territory 
lying between the sea coast on the south and 
west, Cook Inlet on the east and the Yukon 
river on the north, were collected, and to which 
the mails were brought overland during the win- 
ter from St. Michael's, and thence sent to Sitka 
by sea. From here regular winter communica- 
tion was kept open with most of the interior na- 
tive settlements, and it was the center of trade 
for a large area of country, which yielded an 
abundance of the most valuable furs, such as 
the sea otter, black, blue and silver gray foxes, 
etc. Though the natives still go out to hunt the 
sea otter, and the foxes, bear, beaver, etc., are no 
less plentiful, the establishment of trading sta- 
tions in close proximity to many of the native 
settlements, from whence came the bulk of its 

trade, has robbed Nushegak of a large share of 
u 



\ 



162 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

its importance as a trade center; but another in- 
dustry not thought of by the Russians, or if 
thought of never undertaken by them, now more 
than counterbalances its loss of the fur trade. 
There is no longer any fort, nor is there need of 
any; the warlike spirit of the natives was long 
ago completely crushed; they were offered the 
cross, with the sword as an alternative, and after 
a fierce struggle, in which they were worsted, 
they accepted the first and became nominally 
good Christians, though it is plain they have 
never been prevailed upon to adopt the one vir- 
tue which ranks next to godliness. 

The settlement consists of the trader's store, 
the church and parsonage, a few fairly neat log 
buildings occupied by as many Creole families, 
and from thirty to fifty subterranean houses very 
similar in construction to the barrabaras already 
described. There are a number of other native 
settlements scattered along the banks of the 
river. The natives are Innuits, and a description 
of their customs, habits and peculiarities will 
suffice for all the people living along the coast 
west and north as far as Point Barrow; all are 
practically the same people, and there is little 
difference noticeable either in their dress or pecu- 
liar customs and mode of living. They call 
themselves Nushegagmuts. They are of medium 
stature, light brown complexion, with black hair, 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 163 

and, except as to dress, do not differ to any ap- 
preciable extent in personal appearance from 
their southern neighbors, the Kanaigs. Their 
dress consists principally of a parka made of 
squirrel or reindeer skin, the fur of which is 
turned inside during the winter and worn out- 
side in summer, with drawers or trousers of 
tanned reindeer skin, having no opening except 
at the waist, so that they answer the purpose of 
stockings as well; and boots made of the skin 
of the hair-seal or reindeer. Their boats are the 
kyaks, or bidarkas, already described. The men 
hunt the sea otter, in search of which they must 
venture a long way from home in these frail 
boats, and they take some seals during the sum- 
mer, but the walrus, upon which they once re- 
lied for a large part of their food supply, and 
which were valuable for their skins and ivory, 
have become scarce, though Bristol Bay was not 
many years ago a favorite resort of that animal. 
They are, moreover, skillful carvers in ivory, out 
of which they make many useful and ornamental 
articles, such as paper cutters, salad forks, salt 
spoons, watch chains, etc., some of which are 
very pretty and hardly to be excelled either in 
style or finish. They are, however, exceedingly 
filthy in their houses, persons and habits, so much 
so that a person whose olfactory nerves are the 
least bit sensitive is inclined to make his visit 



164 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

among them as brief as possible. Walking 
around among their subterranean abodes, one 
will notice here and there small excavations in 
the ground about the size and depth of ordinary 
post holes, from which emanates a stench which 
would drive a civilized dog to seek refuge in a 
tannery. Reveling in these holes will be seen 
seething, wriggling masses of maggots. On in- 
quiry, the stranger will ascertain that they are 
holes in which the natives bury and rot their fish 
from time to time in order to save the trouble 
of cooking. This is but one of their filthy habits. 
In every Eskimo village there is a common or 
public house known as the Kashima, construct- 
ed after the style of the subterranean dwellings, 
but of much larger dimensions. To enter these 
you first climb down into a hole in the ground 
five or six feet, then crawl ten or fifteen feet 
through a low tunnel to where you ascend to a 
level with the roof of the tunnel and find yourself 
in a large room twenty feet square, probably. 
A raised platform extends all the way round the 
four sides, leaving room in the center for the 
fire-place, which is simply a bare, square spot 
of earth some three feet below the surrounding 
platform, upon which an open fire can be built. 
The platform is on a level with the top of the 
entrance tunnel, the end of which last can be 
opened at will so as to permit persons to pass 



HI 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 165 

under the platform to the fire-place. When the 
fire-place is not needed, it is covered over with 
planks even with the platform, so that there is 
no break in the floor. In this house the men 
do all their domestic work, such as the construc- 
tion of bidarkas, the manufacture of sleds, etc., 
and in it all public meetings or councils are held, 
and all public business transacted. It is also open 
at all times as a shelter for guests or visitors, who 
are there entertained instead of being taken to 
this or that private habitation. It is the sleeping 
place for unmarried adult males, and is Hkewise 
used as a bath house, though it must be said that 
the personal appearance of the natives met at 
Nushegak is not such as to warrant even a sus- 
picion of their having ever indulged in a cleans- 
ing process of that kind. The Kashima also 
answers the purpose of a theater, for mask 
dances, and representations; and in the matter 
of scenic representations these natives, if not up 
to the mark of a later civilization, are at least 
not a whit behind the Chinese. Both male and 
female take part in scenic performances, in which 
there are combats between men who shed whole 
bladderfuls of seal blood for effect, where stuffed 
animals are moved about by hidden strings, 
devil's masks with movable eyes introduced, and 
wooden birds made to flap their wings. In these 
representations the actors enter through the 



166 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

fire-hole, like those who bob up through a trap- 
door in the stage of one of our theaters. 

The store houses, of which there are perhaps 
as many as there are dwellings in each village, 
J|p|| are set upon posts ten to twelve feet high, in 

order to protect their contents against the dogs 
— an Eskimo dog is ever ready to devour any- 
thing he can get hold of, especially if the thing 
is decayed and smells bad. The store houses are 
perhaps eight or ten feet square, and look more 
like so many pig sties on stilts than anything 
else they can be compared with. The only door 
is a small, square hole on one side, which is 
reached by means of a notched stick of wood set 
on end, and which serves as a ladder. In these 
they keep their arrows, spears, snow-shoes, meat, 
berries, rotten fish, salmon heads, fish roe, beluga 
blubber, oil, etc. 

There is no recognized form of chieftainship 
or form of government among these people — 
and they cannot properly be called a tribe, in the 
common acceptation of the word. This is true 
of all the so-called tribes of Alaska; none of them 
have any distinct tribal organization, other than 
that in each settlement one man, by reason of his 
wealth or superior skill and bravery, is recog- 
nized as a sort of leader, and as such his advice 
and counsel, if not sought, is more or less re- 
spected. In none of these settlements, however. 



IjiliL 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 167 

can be found a so-called "chief" who has been 
invested with any authority by his people, or one 
whose will is recognized as law, though in some 
instances a chief may be found assuming and 
exercising arbitrary power and the people yield- 
ing a very reluctant obedience. In the latter 
cases, however, the people are simply living in 
a condition of terrorism. As a general thing the 
shamans (medicine men, who pretend to cure by 
incantation), have more influence with and ex- 
ercise more power over these people than the 
self-constituted chiefs. They are the directors 
of all the festivals, dances, etc., in which old and 
young participate almost continuously during 
the winter months, and by their sorcerous pre- 
tensions acquire an influence over their fellows 
equivalent to absolute power. Persons accused 
by them of witchcraft are not infrequently tied 
by them hand and foot and thrown into some 
out of the way place and left to starve; so it may 
be said that their power is one of life and death, 
to be exercised at will against any and all who 
incur their displeasure. On the other hand, no 
such power in the chief is recognized; when their 
one great law of "an eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth" demands that a life shall be taken, 
the judgment is pronounced not by the chief but 
by the popular voice, and each and every adult 
male becomes a self-appointed executioner. 



168 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

The country bordering on both sides of the 
Nushegak River presents the appearance of a 
high rolling prairie covered with a rich verdure. 
fllH A more luxuriant vegetation or a greater variety 

jPpP of wild flowers than is to be seen growing along 

the banks of this noble stream — wild timothy, 
red top and blue joint grasses waist high, as far 
back as the eye can reach, is seldom found 
anywhere. The ground is mostly covered with 
a deep layer of moss, but in places with a veget- 
able mold, beneath which there is a good soil. 
In dry weather, this moss and mold could very 
easily be burned off. Vegetables are successfully 
grown and the climate is not inimical to the 
growth of at least rye, oats and barley. From 
the river, the ground rises abruptly to an eleva- 
tion of from twenty to fifty feet, and thence 
grows gradually higher until far away in the dis- 
tance it becomes merged in the foot-hills of a 
lofty mountain range. No western prairie before 
cultivation ever presented a more inviting aspect. 
to the vision than does this wide stretch of tree- 
less country with its almost boundless billows of 
waving grass, thickly interspersed with wild 
flowers of almost every hue and variety. To the 
beholder the idea that a soil and climate capable 
of producing such a wealth of vegetation cannot 
be successfully cultivated must appear supremely 
r-y !i ridiculous; and yet that is the beHef which has 

pip 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 169 

been studiously instilled into the public mind by 
those who have selfishly discouraged any and 
every effort at settlement and development in 
Alaska. 

There are four large salmon canneries on the 
Nushegak, which give employment during the 
fishing season to about 150 white men and 300 
Chinese. The fish taken in this river are mostly 
what are known as the king salmon, some of 
which weigh over a hundred pounds, and two of 
which will make a barrel of the salted commodity. 
The market value of the annual output of these 
canneries is about $750,000. 

The smaller rivers and lakes of this section 
teem with food fishes of various kinds, principal 
among which is a white fish very similar to that 
of Lake Superior. Trout similar in size and ap- 
pearance and fully as fine-flavored as those of 
northern Michigan and Wisconsin, are quite 
plentiful; indeed, there is scarcely any limit to 
the food supply which can be drawn from this 
particular section of Alaska — and what is true 
here applies with equal force to all that part of 
the mainland bordering on the coast, and the 
islands lying in front of it, from the southern 
boundary to Kotzebue Sound. 

Though there is no timber for a hundred miles 
above the mouth of the Nushegak, except here 
and there a small grove of trees popularly known 



11 



*\ 



170 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

in the States as Balm of Gilead, beyond that limit 
there are heavy forests of spruce, and a small 
growth of white birch, while the formation as 
exposed along the high banks of the river for 
some distance above and below Fort Alexander 
indicates the existence of a vast coal field, the 
conditions being precisely the same as those 
observable at the coal veins in Cook Inlet. A 
few miles above Fort Alexander is the Moravian 
Mission and school, called Carmel, and beyond 
that, up the river and scattered along the sea 
coast, there are a considerable number of Eskimo 
villages which are seldom visited by white men. 
The Kuskoquin is another great river empty- 
ing into a bay of the same name, of which last 
Capes Newenham and Avinoff are the oppos- 
ing headlands. This river rises in the mountain 
range which lies to the north and west of Cook 
Inlet, and in its long course to the sea approaches 
so near the Yukon that a portage between the 
two could be made in a distance of not much, 
if any, more than thirty miles. It is not improb- 
able that in time to come the disadvantages of 
shallow water at the mouth of the Yukon will 
be overcome by the construction of a railway 
across this portage, provided a sufficient depth 
of water to float large vessels is found in the Kus- 
koquin, a matter concerning which there may 
b^ some doubt. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 171 

There are a large number of Eskimo villages, 
and a Moravian mission on the Kuskoquin, but 
less is known of the section they inhabit than of 
almost any other part of Alaska. It is fed by 
numerous tributaries having their sources in 
mountain ranges which present a most inviting 
field of research to the hardy and intrepid ex- 
plorer. 



172 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



CHAPTER X. 

St. Michael's and Fort Getthere — The Great Yukon River 
— First Discovery of Gold — Forty Mile Creek — Klon- 
dike Only a Forerunner of what is to Come — Una- 
laklik River — A Remarkable Silver Mine — King 
Island and its Peculiar People and Habitations — Port 
Clarence and Grantley Harbor — Coal, Graphite, Gold 
and Silver — Reindeer Station — Cape Prince of Wales 
— Diomede Islands — Beyond the Arctic Circle — 
Kotzebue Sound — Three Large Rivers — Coast Ren- 
dezvous of Interior Natives — Their Habits, Customs 
and Dress. 

Very little is known of the coast between Kus- 
koquin Bay and the mouth of the Yukon, or of 
the large Nunivak Island. The water is more or 
less shoal throughout the whole distance, and 
the coast unapproachable, except by vessels of 
light draught. Therefore, the pilgrim seeking 
the golden shores of the Yukon by the ocean 
route, may sail from San Francisco, Puget Sound 
or Sitka to Unalaska; hence his course will be 
almost due north a distance of nearly 800 miles 
to Sledge Island, thence east along the northern 
shore of Norton Sound till Cape Nome is passed, 
and then southeast to St. Michael's, where he 
will find himself within a hundred miles of the 
nearest mouth of the great river. This round- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 173 

about course is necessitated by the shoal water, 
which prevents vessels of deep draught from ap- 
proaching in safety nearer than fifty miles to the 
mouth of the Yukon. 

St. Michael's, or, as it was called by the Rus- 
sians, Redoubt St. Michael, is located on the 
inner side of an island of the same name, lying 
near the southeast shore of Norton Sound, only 
a narrow strait separating it from the mainland. 
It is the most northerly permanent trading sta- 
tion of the Alaska Commercial Company, and 
consists of not more than a dozen buildings, in- 
cluding the Greco-Russian church, and exclud- 
ing the barrabaras, in which dwell from 200 to 
300 natives. The company's buildings inclose 
the two sides and one end of a rectangular plat 
not more than five rods wide and ten rods long, 
and are all, with the exception of the log struc- 
ture at the end, of modern construction; this 
log building is all that remains of the old Rus- 
sian fort, which is said to have been a fortress 
of considerable strength, in and around which 
occurred many desperate struggles between the 
Russians and natives, before the latter were com- 
pletely subdued. 

St. Michael's Island embraces about twelve 
square miles, and lies in latitude about 60 de- 
grees 30 minutes north. It is wholly timberless, 
save and except an occasional clump of alders and 



,R1/ 



174 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

dwarf willows, but is carpeted with a most lux- 
uriant growth of wild grasses, embellished with 
a profusion of variegated wild flowers. The soil 
is a rich vegetable mold, and capable of pro- 
ducing all the vegetables that can be grown in 
the extreme northern states. The temperature 
ranges from about — 45 degrees in winter to 
+ 85 degrees in summer — about the same as 
northern Minnesota. 

Fort Getthere is the name given to the trad- 
ing station established and maintained on the 
island by the Northwestern Transportation and 
Trading Company, which, the same as the 
Alaska Commercial Company, operates a line 
of steamers on the Yukon. These steamers are 
small, stern-wheel river boats, drawing from two 
to four feet of water, which is all they can carry 
through the upper or most northerly mouth of 
the great river. The river discharges its great 
flow of water into the sea through at least half a 
dozen channels, the one used at present being 
that which is nearest St. Michael's, though near- 
ly 100 miles distant; above the deltas the river 
is deep enough to be navigated a distance of at 
least 1,000 miles by steamers drawing twelve to 
fifteen feet, while an ordinary river boat such as 
those employed on the Mississippi, can ascend to 
a further distance of 1,000 miles. In addition 
to this a number of its principal tributaries are 



lili 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 175 

navigable by light draught steamers for from 
200 to 500 miles each, the most notable of these 
being the Koyukuk, Nowikakat, Tananah, Por- 
cupine, White, Stewart and Pelly. The ice breaks 
up early in May and forms again in October, 
thus giving about five months of navigation in 
each year. 

Gold was first discovered on the Yukoji and 
its tributaries in 1882, but the discoveries attract- 
ed little attention until 1886, when coarse gold 
was found on Forty Mile Creek. Then followed 
a gradual influx of miners and prospectors and 
new discoveries which culminated in the phe- 
nomenally rich strike in the Klondike district 
of British Columbia in 1896, and the subsequent 
rush to that section from all parts of the civilized 
world. It is yet too early to write much in 
detail of the gold fields of the Yukon and its trib- 
utaries; with a fuller knowledge of the prevailing 
conditions, with the most approved mining ap- 
pliances and the cost of living lessened by at least 
one-half, as it is certain to be, hundreds and 
thousands of claims which cannot now be worked 
at a profit will be made to yield large returns, 
while the Klondike discovery is almost certain 
to be repeated on not only one but many of the 
numerous streams that flow wholly within Amer- 
ican territory. There yet remains north of the 
Yukon, stretching away hundreds of miles to the 



176 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Arctic Ocean on the west and north, a vast region 
of territory, with numberless mountain streams, 
which is yet a terra incognito to the prospector, 
and from which much is to be expected in the 
way of discovery. 

About forty or fifty miles northeast of St. Mi- 
chael's the Unalaklik River empties into Norton 
Sound. There is here a Swedish mission and 
school, and a very considerable Eskimo settle- 
ment. This is one of the most prolific salmon 
streams in Alaska, and from it a large number of 
Eskimos draw their principal food supply. Go- 
lovin Bay and Sound is a land-locked indentation 
of the north coast of Norton Sound, about sixty 
miles north of St. Michael's. On Fish River, a 
stream which empties into the bay, and naviga- 
ble by small steamers for a considerable distance 
above its mouth, is located, perhaps, the most 
remarkable mine in the world. It is a vein of 
practically pure metal, the waste in smelting be- 
ing not over 20 per cent, of the whole weight. 
The ore is a galena carrying from 75 to 85 per 
cent, lead, with some gold, and from 150 to 250 
ounces of silver to the ton. This is called the 
Omalik Mine, and is in latitude 65 degrees north, 
longitude, 164 degrees west, about 1,500 miles 
from Sitka in a straight line. So far it is the most 
northerly mine on the continent, and is believed 
to be only a beginning in the development of a 



\ 



1 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 177 

district unusually rich in the character and extent 
of its mineral deposits. 

The next point of interest in our progress to 
the Arctic is King, or Ukivok, Island, which lies 
perhaps twenty-five miles southwest of Cape 
Spencer, at the entrance to Port Clarence. This 
interesting island, except as to height, is a mere 
speck on the surface of the sea, being not over 
a mile long and half a mile wide; its shores, how- 
ever, rise almost perpendicularly from the 
water's edge to a height of from 500 to 700 feet, 
presenting an altogether forbidding aspect. 
Along the whole of its coast line there is neither 
bay, cove nor sandy beach, and it is therefore 
wholly inaccessible except by small boats, and 
then only when the sea is calm. There is an Eski- 
mo settlement on the south side of the island, at 
the only point, apparently, where it would be at 
all possible to construct habitations of any kind. 
This village is located on a rugged slope very 
difHcult of ascent, at a height of at least a hun- 
dred feet above the sea, and at the base of which 
a landing cannot be effected even from small 
boats without a good deal of difficulty. The vil- 
lage is the most remarkable feature of the island, 
upon which neither tree nor shrub is to be seen, 
and but little vegetation of any kind. The set- 
tlement contains a summer and winter village in 

one — the summer houses, if such they can prop- 
12 



I'^S ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

erly be termed, being constructed of walrus hides 

almost perpendicular cliffs by lashings and guys 
of walrus thongs. In constructing these singu- 
lar habitations the ends of two or more poles are 
fitted into niches cut in the cliff, the outer ends 
being supported by others standing on end, and 
to which the horizontal ones are securely lashed 
— the perpendicular poles extending far enough 
above the horizontal ones to form the nucleus of 
a frame work upon which the hides enclosing the 
whole are stretched and fastened, the floor and 
roof being of the same material as the sides. 
There are, perhaps, fifty of these summer houses, 
with as many winter habitations, in which live 
about 400 natives of all ages and sexes. The 
winter house consists of excavations in the face 
of the cliff, the fronts being walled up with stones, 
chinked with moss, and leaving an entrance just 
large enough to enable a person to crawl in and 
out. The denizens of this northern Gibraltar live 
almost entirely upon the flesh of the walrus and 
seal, though there is some kind of plant indige- 
nous to the island which constitutes a small part 
of their food supply. They carry on a summer 
trade with the natives of the Alaskan mainland, 
and also with those on the Siberian coast, with 
whom they exchange the skins of the seal and 
walrus for those of the reindeer and other furred 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 179 

animals not found on their island. They are a 
naturally bright and intelligent people, all things 
considered, but exceedingly filthy in their per- 
sons and mode of living. The men are very ex- 
pert hunters, using only the Kyak (bidarka) in 
their pursuit of the walrus and seal; the imple- 
ments used in killing these animals are spears 
made of ivory, which they throw with great pre- 
cision. 

They very rarely venture far out to sea, how- 
ever, in a single kyak, but usually lash two to- 
gether so they will float side by side and cannot 
easily be overturned. For long voyages they lise 
the oomiak (bidarra, or open skin boat), which 
is often large enough to carry from forty to fifty 
persons. In the construction of these boats no 
other material than wood and walrus hides are 
used, if we except the whalebone or sinew with 
which the skins are sewed and the frames fastened 
together. In the absence of timber on the island 
the people are obliged to depend upon what little 
driftwood they can pick up for fuel, and when 
that fails they resort to the use of seal and walrus 
blubber, the foul odor of which while burning 
is distressing even to the not oversensitive olfac- 
tory organ. 

The King Island people have no history or tra- 
dition other than that their ancestors came there 
a great many years ago, but from whence they 



180 ALASKA; ITS HISTORY, 

came, or what the cause or inducement, they 
have no knowledge. It is most probable that 
they are the descendants of a people who, being 
driven from their homes by an enemy more pow- 
erful than themselves, fled to this island and lo- 
cated in a position from which it would be next 
to impossible for all the other natives of the coun- 
try combined to dislodge them. It would be ex- 
ceedingly hazardous for an enemy to attempt a 
landing in front of their village, or anywhere else 
on the island for that matter; it is only when the 
sea is perfectly calm that they can launch their 
own oomiaks. When the sea is ruffled and one 
of their number is desirous of putting off from 
shore in his kyak, he seats himself in the hatch, 
and a number of others, taking hold of its ends, 
toss both boat and occupant over into the water, 
thus giving him a fair start on his way. So dex- 
terous are they in the handling and maneuver- 
ing of these little skin boats that one of them, 
his person being protected by a kamalyka (skin 
shirt with hood all in one), the hood of which is 
closely tied under the chin and the skirt securely 
fastened around the protruding rim of the hatch 
in which he sits, will turn himself over sideways 
in the water, bringing the kyak bottom side up, 
and then come up smiling, after having described 
a circle, half in the water and half in the air, ready 



1 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 181 

and willing to repeat the operation for a paltry 
consideration. 

Port Clarence is a capacious bay formed by a 
long, low, semi-circular point, projecting out 
from the mainland to the west and north some 
fifteen or twenty miles. Grantley Harbor is an 
inner basin not nearly so large, but connected 
with it by a narrow channel, presenting in itself 
more the appearance of a lake than an arm of 
the sea. It is surrounded by high cliffs of slate, 
and a river of very considerable size flows into it 
from the mountains which form the water shed 
of the large peninsula lying between Norton and 
Kotzebue Sounds. There is a permanent native 
settlement on the south shore of Port Clarence, 
and a summer village on the narrow strip of land 
which lies between the inner and outer basins. 
This summer village is made the rendezvous dur- 
ing the hunting and fishing season of the people 
living in the adjacent interior and on the Dio- 
mede Islands, who here make their winter supply 
of salmon and hunt the beluga (white whale). 

At this place the natives will be found in pos- 
session of large and numerous specimens of 
graphite, apparently nearly pure carbon, which 
they make into rude ornaments, having no other 
appreciation of its value. It is asserted by them 
that there are large deposits of this mineral in 
the banks of the river which falls into Grantley 



182 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Harbor, that great seams of coal are to be found 
at a distance that can be covered in a journey of 
two days from the mouth of the river, and insist 
that gold and silver veins abound in the moun- 
tains not far away. That they do not err in the 
last assertion is evidenccjd by the development 
in the Omalik mine, already referred to, and 
which is located scarcely a hundred miles to the 
eastward of Port Clarence. 
.jMLj There is a coaling station at Port Clarence 

fli! from which government vessels and steam 

whalers are supplied, and here is located the 
lji||K principal reindeer station established by the gov- 

"^™' ernment with a view to providing for the neces- 

sities of the native people. In view of the fact 
JHH * that hundreds of thousands of reindeer roam the 

wilds of Alaska, the propriety of importing the 
domesticated animal for the benefit of a people 
• not possessed of sufficient acumen to emulate the 

example of their neighbors by utilizing the wild 
herds they are wont to improvidently slaughter, 
has been seriously questioned; but aside from 
the benefit likely to accrue to the natives, who 
must be watched to prevent them from slaugh- 
tering the domestic herds, the domesticated 
reindeer seems certain to play an important part 
JHIi in the future history of Alaska; so much so, in- 

deed, as to more than justify the expense of their 
introduction. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 183 

Cape .Prince of Wales is a projection of the 
mainland at the lower or southern end of Bering 
Strait, and the most westerly point of the con- 
tinent. The settlement is the largest on the coast 
north of the Aliaska Peninsula, consisting of 
nearly, if not quite, one hundred barrabaras, 
which, though the surroundings are more or less 
filthy and odoriferous, present cleaner and tidier 
interiors than those of most of the Eskimo vil- 
lages. The men and women are rather good 
looking, as compared with the generality of Alas- 
kan natives; the men are well built and muscu- 
lar, and both men and women are the keenest 
and shrewdest of traders. The women wear long 
hair, but the men, like those of King Island and 
all the Arctic coast settlements, shave the upper 
two-thirds of their heads, leaving a bare crown, 
surrounded by a fringe of hair about two inches 
in width. They hiaintain a multitude of dogs, 
and the number of sledges and snowshoes to be 
seen leads to the beHef that they are accustomed 
to long winter journeys. Their houses are a near 
approach to the barrabaras heretofore described 
— more than half cave — the upper part being 
a rude frame constructed of driftwood or whale's 
ribs, and covered with earth. 

Cape Prince of Wales is in latitude 65 degrees 
30 minutes, and longitude 165 degrees 50 min- 
utes, and Hes nearly opposite to East Cape, the 



r 



184 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

most easterly point of Asia. It forms tfie south- 
east headland of Bering Strait and is a long, low 
neck of land which rises abruptly into a range of 
high hills not far back from the coast, the latter 
stretching away to the northeast along the south 
coast of Kotzebue Sound. The small area of 
land lying at the foot of the narrow western slope 
of these hills, as well as the slope itself, is covered 
with a rich verdure, and, surprising to say, a 
dozen different varieties of wild flowers of as 
many hues embellish the landscape. Pleasing 
to the eye, they are, however, totally devoid of 
fragrance, as, indeed, is the case with most of the 
wild flowers indigenous to Alaska. 

Here also the natives will be found in posses- 
sion of graphite ornaments, which mineral they 
say, can be found in great abundance not more 
than two or three miles from the settlement. 

Passing Fairway Rock, a huge, conically 
shaped pillar, which stands like a sentinel about 
midway of the south entrance of Bering Strait, 
the Diomede Islands, between which lies the 
boundary line between the United States and 
Russia, a few hours' steaming brings us into 
what the treaty of cession denominates the 
Frozen Ocean. The Diomedes — Kruzenstern 
and Ratzmanoflf — are both inhabited, the people 
of the first owing allegiance to the United 
States and those of the other being Russian sub- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 185 

jects. These islands lie but a few miles apart, and 
it is a fact not generally known that only half a 
dozen miles intervene between the landed pos- 
sessions of the United States and Russia at the 
point of their nearest approach to each other. 

Crossing the Arctic circle, latitude 66 degrees 
32 minutes, astronomically determined, our ship 
bears away to the eastward for Cape Blossom, in 
Kotzebue Sound. Here is experienced a marked 
difference in the temperature, as compared with 
that below the strait, the weather in August be- 
ing about that of a crisp October morning in the 
temperate zone — neither too cold nor too warm 
for comfort, clothed in ordinary spring or au- 
tumn apparel. We are now in the land of the 
midnight sun; there is practically no night, only 
four hours of twihght intervening between the 
rising and setting of the sun, the declination of 
which is about two degrees. One can see to read 
ordinary newspaper print at midnight, without 
the aid of artificial light, and there is no dark- 
ness to hide from observation any object which 
might be seen from a distance at high noon. 

Capes Espenberg on the south and Kruzen- 
stern on the north constitute the headlands of 
Kotzebue Sound, and at both these points there 
are native villages of perhaps twenty houses 
each. From the entrance between these head- 
lands, which are about forty miles distant from 



186 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

each other, the trend of the opposing coast lines 
is to the east, southeast, from' Kruzenstern and 
almost south from Espenberg, the south and in- 
ner indentation being known as the Bay of Good 
Hope. Directly opposite to Cape Espenberg and 
nearly due east from it is Cape Blossom, a south- 
ern projection of the narrow peninsula lying be- 
tween the Sound and Hotham Inlet. About 
four miles northwest from the extreme outer 
point of Cape Blossom, and not far from the en- 
trance to the inlet, there is a small native village 
which forms the nucleus of a large summer ren- 
dezvous for the interior natives, who annually 
congregate there to trade with their brethren of 
the coast and to catch and cure a supply of sal- 
mon for the winter. This summer village or tem- 
porary encampment, when occupied as a rendez- 
vous, consists of a long line of tents and partially 
inverted oomiaks. The oomiak is not only used 
as a means of transportation and travel from 
place to place, but is made to serve as a shelter 
or temporary abode during the summer months. 
When night or a storm overtakes a traveling 
party the oomiak is drawn out upon the beach, 
tilted over into an inverted position — one side 
being propped up just high enough above the 
ground to enable a person to crawl under, the 
space thus left open being covered with skins in 
the way of curtains — and under the shelter thus 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 187 

provided the party lodges not infrequently for 
weeks at a time. 

At this place the natives assemble every sum- 
mer to the number of three thousand or more. 
The author, landing at this encampment on one 
occasion, was carried in state all along the front 
of the long line of tents and inverted oomiaks, 
seated in a bidarra tracked by half a dozen dogs, 
and finally greeted with an altogether too dem- 
onstrative welcome from the assembled thou- 
sands of both sexes, all ages and sizes, among 
whom there was not any perceivable distinction 
of unwashed condition. He was most hospitably 
entertained by the local chief, who accompanied 
him on a round of calls upon all the visiting 
chiefs, by whom he was successively received 
with much native dignity, coupled with an air 
of pleasurable satisfaction none of them made 
any effort to conceal. Exchanges of presents 
were made — a plug of navy tobacco or a paper 
of needles on the one part and a skin of some 
kind or piece of carved ivory on the other. An 
exchange of presents is considered by these peo- 
ple a pledge of friendship on both sides not light- 
ly to be disturbed. 

The people who annually assemble at the en- 
campment are more or less representative of the 
entire population of all that vast and practically 
unknown region lying between the Yukon River 



188 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

and the Arctic Ocean. They are not only friend- 
ly but pressing and insistent in their proffers of 
hospitality. They are kind and affectionate to- 
ward their children, a trait characteristic of all 
the natives of Alaska. The husbands appear to 
be very obedient to their wives, instead of vice 
versa, as is supposed to be the rule among un- 
civilized people. The wives and daughters are 
not treated as mere beasts of burden, as are the 
dusky women and maidens of the forest and 
plain who live and have their being much nearer 
the centers of civilization; the husband always 
consults and generally accepts the advice given 
by the wife in all business transactions; he fol- 
lows the chase and provides the means of sub- 
sistence ; she makes the parkas, the boots and the 
skin clothing generally, besides doing the cook- 
ing. 

The clothing of these interior bands (they 
have no tribal organization) like those inhabiting 
the coast, consists of furs, the skins of the rein- 
deer being more extensively utilized for that pur- 
pose than those of any other animal. A full suit 
of Eskimo clothing consists of a parka, panta- 
loons, boots, and sometimes includes a fur cap, 
but except during the short season of intolerable 
summer's heat, the average Innuit scorns 
anything in the shape of a cover for his 
head. The parka is usually made double, 






CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 189 

SO as to provide a garment with fur on 
both sides; the men wear one pair of pantaloons 
in summer with the fur inside, but in winter af- 
fect an undergarment, generally of tanned rein- 
deer skin; the women wear two pairs of panta- 
loons, one made of tanned reindeer-fawn skin, 
worn with the fur inside, and the other of coarser 
material, with the fur outside. The boots for 
winter wear are made mostly of the skins of rein- 
deer legs and reach about half way to the knees; 
those for summer use are made of hair-seal skin, 
with tops reaching above the knee, the soles be- 
ing composed of the thick hides of the old bull 
seal. Some of these boots are elaborately, even 
richly, trimmed with the fur of the marten, wol- 
verine or fox, especially those worn by the wom- 
en. The winter parka is provided with a hood, 
trimmed around the front edge with the fur of 
the arctic wolf, the warm, protecting fringe of 
which almost completely hides the face when 
the hood is drawn over the head. 

The coast natives are essentially a trading 
people and occupy the position of middlemen be- 
tween the interior people and the whites not 
only, but the Chukches of Siberia as well; from 
the latter the most valuable of their garments, 
especially their parkas made from the skins of 
the tame reindeer, are thus obtained, and a more 
comfortable garment for outdoor winter wear 



190 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

it would be hard to devise, , even for the use of 
refined people, were the skins first properly 
tanned; but the Eskimo process of tanning im- 
parts to the garment an ineradicable odor at once 
vile and unendurable. Among the coast people 
the skin of the wolf is prized above all others 
for the trimming of garments, yet they are ready 
to barter even that for the skin of the beaver, 
which last is in great demand among the Chuk- 
ches, on whom they rely for the greater part of 
the material from which their clothing is made, 
and with whom they drive a brisk trade every 
summer. 

Simple as is the costume he habitually wears, 
the Eskimo affects a good deal of style in his 
footgear— more than in any other part of his 
dress. His trousers, as has already been ex- 
plained, are a combination of pantaloons and 
stockings in one garment, and usually fit his per- 
son without a wrinkle, they being so nicely made. 
But in the matter of footgear he gives a wider 
range to his skill and ingenuity. He affects a 
much greater variety in that regard than might 
naturally be inferred; and here is to be seen the 
deference shown even by the untutored Eskimo 
to the gentler sex, if such a term may be con- 
sidered applicable in this particular case. The 
women's boots are made almost invariably of 
the skin of the reindeer fawn, the fur of which 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 191 

is pure white and fine and soft, while those for 
men's wear are made of the skin of the hair- 
seal or adult reindeer, neither of which are any 
more to be compared to those worn by the wom- 
en than are a lady's kids in keeping with a pair 
of cowhide brogans. The men's winter boots, 
whether of seal or reindeer skin, always have 
the hair or fur outside; for men's summer wear 
the boots are made of tanned sealskin from which 
the hair is wholly removed; these are impervious 
to water and preferred as being cooler, though 
the statement may provoke a smile of incredu- 
lity. There are, perhaps, no people anywhere 
who suffer more from the heat during a certain 
short season of the year than do those who in- 
habit that large section of Alaska which lies 
north of the arctic circle. But, as to the matter 
of boots: Some of them extend no higher than 
the ankles, others half way to the knee and others 
above the knee; some are fancifully ornamented 
with tufts of different kinds of fur, others 
trimmed at the top with a fringe of wolf or wol- 
verine; some are snow white, others white and 
red, others all red, and others still a dull black, 
which is the color of the sealskin after being 
tanned by the Eskimo process. All are supplied 
with thongs, attached low down on each side 
of the heel, and which in tying are first passed 
up across the instep and then clear around in the 



192 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

hollow of the foot, back to the instep, where, 
crossing each other, they are wound once or 
twice around the ankle and then tied. By this 
means, no matter whether or not the boots fit, 
they are prevented from sloshing around on the 
foot and running down at the heel, as they other- 
wise would. Barring the disagreeable odor, an 
arctic belle's winter boots would be just the thing 
for the fashionable ladies of the northern states 
who affect snow-shoeing as a healthy winter 
recreation; they are very light, very neat and 
nothing can be warmer. A very simple device 
to prevent these boots, the soles of which are of 
the same thickness from heel to toe, from slip- 
ping on the ice or hard snow, consists pf a piece 
of ivory or bone about an inch wide and a quarter 
of an inch thick, which is shaped to fit into the 
hollow of the foot, and the outer surface of which 
is so cross-grooved as to give a jagged surface 
certain to imprint a firm hold in either ice or 
crusted snow. 

To protect the eyes against the snow blasts 
of winter on the one hand, and against snow 
blindness on the other, they wear wooden spec- 
tacles, or goggles, without glasses; in the bowl 
which covers the eye there is simply a narrow 
slit, through which the wearer is afforded a wider 
range of vision than would be thought possible 
from a mere inspection of the rude contrivance. 




MADONNA AND CHILD. 
From Painting in Greek Church, Sitka, 



^Wi! 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 193 

They wear no hats except in the extreme hot 
weather of July and August — and, though the 
mercury never aspires to any great height on the 
coast, there is abundant evidence to substantiate 
the assertion that in the interior of northern 
Alaska during those two months the heat be- 
comes well nigh unendurable. Their sun hats 
are carved out of single blocks of wood, with 
broad oval brim in front, and are generally orna- 
mented with strips of ivory set on edge, and upon 
which is carved the totem or tradition of the fam- 
ily of which the owner is a member. And it can- 
not be said of the interior Alaskans, as it was 
of the party in the song, that they "wear no 
socks." These they do wear, but not of any 
pattern to be found on the shelves of a well 
stocked hosiery store; they are made of the 
grasses indigenous to the section in which they 
live, closely and neatly braided, and preferable 
to any other, in that climate, summer or winter. 
These interior natives, as well as those on King 
Island, Cape Prince of Wales, and the coast gen- 
erally, shear the crown of the head tonsure style 
and sport labrets, some of the latter being of 
enormous size, though these fashions are con- 
fined principally to the males. In southeastern 
Alaska the labret is worn in the center of the 
lower lip, varying in size, according to the age 

13 



frarf 



i'i u \ 



194 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

of the wearer, and in proportion to the gradual 
enlargement of the perforation. But among 
these northern people a single perforation is not 
deemed exactly the proper thing, and every male 
of any consequence must have two slits through 
the lower lip, one at each corner of the mouth, in 
which he wears a pair of labrets about the size 
and shape of an ordinary cuff button. These are 
generally made of a kind of mottled stone some- 
what resembling gray granite, of jade, of ivory, 
some being round, some square, some oblong, 
the largest flange of which is always worn out- 
side. Some of these labrets are the size of a 
half-dollar and others at least an inch square, 
the making of which must involve a great deal of 
patient labor. They are not worn with any other 
object than that of personal adornment, any 
more than the stone and ivory ear trinkets are 
by the women. 

Three large rivers, the Noatag, Kowak and 
Selawik, flow into Hotham Inlet. Very little 
is known of either of these streams, except the 
Kowak, which was explored by Lieutenant 
Stoney, U. S. N., in 1885-6. Lieutenant How- 
ard, also of the navy, accompanied Stoney on his 
expedition up the Kowak, and from its head 
waters traversed the portage to the head waters 
of the Colville, which river he descended to its 
mouth, and thence made his way along the coast 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 195 

of the Arctic to Point Barrow. The reported dis- 
covery of gold at the head waters of these rivers 
would seem to confirm the opinion expressed by 
both these intrepid officers in their reports to 
the war department. 



i 



106 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



CHAPTER XL 

Kotzebue Sound to Point Barrow — Immense Coal Veins 
— Point Barrow — Native Villages — The Whaling In- 
dustry — How the Whales are Taken — Country not 
Devoid of Means of Human Subsistence — The Arctic 
Eskimos, Their Mode of Living, Customs and 
Habits. 

At Point Hope, which is the most westerly 
projection of the mainland north of Cape Prince 
of Wales, and probably the most barren, deso- 
late place imaginable, there is the largest Eskimo 
settlement to be found on the Arctic coast. 
There are, however, smaller villages scattered all 
along the coast as far as Point Barrow, but most 
of these latter consist only of summer habitations 
of parties engaged in fishing and hunting. 

Beyond Cape Lisburne, which is in longitude 
about 167, the coast trends to the northeast until 
Point Barrow is reached, and thence south of 
east to and beyond the 141st meridian. Be- 
tween Cape Lisburne and Point Sabine the coast 
is more or less rugged, high, almost perpendicu- 
lar sandstone bluffs enclosing a narrow, sandy 
beach, in front of which the water is too shoal 
to permit close approach except in small boats. 
In these blufifs, looking from the deck of the ship. 



m 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 19^ 

at a distance of two miles, can be seen large 
seams of coal which have been exposed by the 
action of the waves dashing against and breaking 
or wearing away the face of the cliffs. Some of 
these veins are more than thirty feet thick, while 
the coal has been pronounced by competent 
judges a semi-bituminous — fully as good as the 
celebrated Cardiff coal. For miles upon miles 
along the water front these immense coal seams 
can be seen protruding from the nearly perpendic- 
ular sandstone cliffs facing the sea and indicating 
the existence of a coal field the extent and value 
of w^hich, were it but within easy reach of the 
centers of trade and manufacture, could scarcely 
be overestimated. But there is no harbor any- 
where in its near vicinity, and if there were, the 
coal could not be shipped by water during a sea- 
son of more than three months in each year. A 
railroad 250 miles in length would cover the dis- 
tance between the mines and the most feasible 
shipping point on Norton Sound, but would add 
only about one m.onth more to the season during 
which shipment could be made l)y water to San 
Francisco and other ports on the Pacific. There- 
fore, however extensive these coal measures may 
be, they will never be utilized to any appreciable 
extent until the railroad, which, it is predicted, 
will sooner or later girdle the earth, is completed 
to Bering Strait, when they can be reached by 



198 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

branch lines of no greater length than many of 
the roads which now carry millions of tons of 
coal from the mines of Ohio, Pennsylvania and 
other states to the great cities on the lakes and 
the Atlantic coast. 

Point Barrow is a low, flat sand-spit, that 
projects about eight miles to the northward from 
the main coast line, the latter terminating at 
Cape Smythe, thence turning eastward for about 
the same distance, and, together with a stretch 
of sand banks lying in front of it, forming what 
is known as Elson's Bay. The coast between 
Point Barrow and the eastern boundary is in- 
dented by numerous bays, and several large 
rivers are supposed to flow into the Arctic on the 
Alaska side of the boundary line, though Httle is 
known of any of them, except the Colville, which 
was partially explored by Lieutenant Howard, 
U. S. N., in 1886. 

There are two native villages on Point Barrow 
— Ooglaamie, at Cape Smythe, and Noowook, 
at its extreme northern end. The latter is the 
larger of the two, having a population of perhaps 
250 people, the former not over half that num- 
ber. On the Point, midway between the two vil- 
lages, there is a summer rendezvous at which the 
natives gather during the months of July and 
August to shoot eider ducks, myriads of which 
are wont to collect in a lagoon which connects 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 199 

on the east side with Elson's Bay. Point Bar- 
row is the summer rendezvous of the Arctic 
whaHng fleet, which usually consists of about 
forty vessels, including a few steamers. Here, 
having made the acquaintance of the master of 
one of the whaling ships, we may be afforded the 
opportunity of seeing a whale taken, and possi- 
bly be permitted to join in the chase. We will 
find the whaling captains an unusually intelli- 
gent, generous and jovial set of men, whom it 
would be a pleasure to meet anywhere and under 
almost any circumstances. If we do not care to 
go on a cruise with one of them to the whaling 
grounds we will at least be shown the implements 
with which the huge cetaceans are killed and 
glean much interesting information concerning 
the manner in which they are used, and the dis- 
position made of a whale after he has been taken. 
The whales are generally caught near the ice" 
pack, along the edge of which the ships cruise 
for hundreds of miles north and east from Point 
Barrow from July to the last of August, and 
later to the westward as far as Herald and Wran- 
gell Islands. The ships are obliged to flee the 
ocean, however, as soon as the new ice begins 
to form. When the whales migrate to the south 
is not certainly known, but they are supposed to 
follow close after the ships, as they are obliged 
to seek open water. In taking them the old-fash- 



200 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ioned harpoon is no longer used; it has been su- 
perseded by more modern implements called the 
harpoon-gun and the bomb-lance. Whether it 
be the harpoon-gun or lance, if the whale is 
struck he is reasonably certain to be secured 
unless the line to which the missile is attached 
parts, in which case he either sinks or escapes 
under the ice. The fight with a whale is always 
at close quarters; the boat rushes upon him 
when he rises, and the shot is fired or the lance 
thrown from a distance of not more than fifteen 
to twenty feet. Contrary to the generally pre- 
vailing impression, the bow-head (the only spe- 
cies sought in the Arctic) very seldom shows 
fight, and when one is wounded all that is neces- 
sary to the safety of the boats is to keep clear of 
his flukes. He can only see straight ahead, a fact 
which enables those in pursuit to stealthily ap- 
proach and deal him a mortal wound before he 
is aware of the presence of an enemy. The boats 
are not infrequently rowed squarely across his 
back as he rises to spout, and the thrust given 
or shot fired from a position immediately over 
him. The size of the bow-head varies, in whalers' 
parlance, from seventy-five to one hundred bar- 
rels. His maximum length is about sixty feet 
and approximate weight about twenty-five tons. 
The head constitutes about one-third of his 
length; the girth in the largest part is from thirty 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 301 

to forty feet, and the tail from fifteen to twenty 
feet wide, from tip to tip, and correspondingly 
thick. His principal value is for the bone, which 
is the first thing secured when one is taken; the 
oil alone would not pay the expense of the voy- 
age, evea though all a ship could carry might be 
secured. The bone of a loo-barrel whale is worth 
all the way from $7,000 to $12,000, the oil not 
much, if any, more than one-tenth as much. 

The country adjacent to the Arctic coast is en- 
tirely barren of timber, save here and there a 
patch of dwarf willows. Viewed from the deck 
of a passing ship, the land as far as the eye can 
reach presents the appearance of a vast stretch 
of high rolling prairie, clothed with a rich ver- 
dure; but on landing it is found to be nothing 
more than an immense tundra — practically a 
morass overlying a solid field of ice. By Au- 
gust of each year the surface of the ground has 
thawed out to a depth of not more than twelve 
to eighteen inches, and the vegetation which 
looks so luxuriant from a distance is just enough 
to hide from sight the numerous holes filled with 
water, which render locomotion extremely te- 
dious and laborious; beautiful and attractive to 
the eye when viewed from afar, the Arctic land- 
scape proves itself a delusion and a snare the 
moment you set your foot upon it. 

The Arctic Eskimos, like those in other parts 



202 . ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

of Alaska, subsist principally upon animal food, 
and whatever may be said or written to the con- 
trary, there is enough of that, independent of the 
fish in the streams and lakes adjacent, to supply 
the wants of all the people, civilized or uncivil- 
ized, who are likely to ever inhabit this otherwise 
inhospitable region. The waters of the bays are 
literally hidden from view in the summer months 
with countless numbers of water fowl, while on 
the land, in addition to the herds of reindeer, the 
ptarmigan, a game bird of fine flavor, abounds, 
while fish of many varieties can nowhere else be 
found more abundant. 

The Eskimo whaling season opens as soon as 
the ice begins to open and break away from the 
shore in the spring, or early summer; during 
the fall and winter they hunt the walrus and 
hair seal. The seals are taken through the ice, 
the season beginning as soon as the waters ad- 
jacent to the shore are frozen over in the fall, and 
lasting until the ice is driven off shore in the 
spring. They have two ways of taking seals — 
with spears and nets. The reader will wonder 
how it can be possible to use nets in waters cov- 
ered with from three to seven feet of ice, but the 
Point Barrow people take more seals in that way 
than with the spear. The seal must have air, and 
either makes for himself and keeps open an air 
hole or seeks one already made. When the na- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 203 

tives discover one of these air holes they proceed 
to set their nets, which are made of whalebone, 
with meshes large enough to admit the head of 
a seal without permitting the passage of his 
body; these nets are perhaps thirty feet in length 
and about half that in width. They are set by dig- 
ging holes through the ice about the length of 
the net distant from each other, through one of 
which a walrus hide thong (one end of which is 
attached to the net and the other weighted with 
a stone) is dropped, and by means of a long pole 
with hook attachment drawn up through the 
other. The net is by these means pulled under 
the ice and into the desired position, its bottom 
edge being weighted with stones, which cause it 
to hang taut and perpendicularly in the water, 
the thongs at either end being secured to stakes 
set in the upper surface of the ice. In this way 
the air hole is practically surrounded by nets. The 
seal, making for his breathing place from any 
direction, encounters the net, usually with such 
force as to loosen one of the lines from the stake, 
and in his struggles to get clear entangles him- 
self in the net and drowns, when he is drawn out 
through the other hole. Another plan is to sus- 
pend a single net a few feet under the ice, with 
a line attached to each corner so as to hold it in 
a horizontal position, thus completely covering 
the approach to the air hole. Later in the season 



204 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

a great many are speared at the air holes, but as 
is the case in netting them, a great 'deal of silent, 
patient watchfulness must be exercised. Finding 
an air hole, the native who prefers the spear to 
the net places in it what might be termed an in- 
dicator, which forewarns him of the coming of 
the seal. The indicator consists of a small feather 
fitted into the upper end of a thin strip of bone 
or ivory, which is set upright in a bar across the 
hole, into which it projects a foot or more. These 
air holes are quite small at the surface, and the 
spear must be thrown with unerring aim to be 
effective. The feather indicator set, the native 
stands patiently by and awaits the coming of the 
seal, and rarely misses his aim. The spear is 
made of ivory, with toggle-joint, and so fastened 
to the shaft that it detaches itself when the blow 
is delivered, a stout line of walrus hide, however, 
to which it is securely attached being the means 
by which the seal is secured after he is struck. The 
watcher at one of these air holes frequently lures 
the seal out, or hastens his coming, by occasion- 
ally scratching on the ice with a set of seal claws 
fastened on a wooden handle. Having fastened 
a seal with his spear, the native then sets about 
getting him to the surface, which he does by en- 
larging the hole, a task involving considerable 
labor. This is done with an ivory pick, attached 
most generally to the shaft of his spear, the ice 



■ 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 305 

as fast as loosened being removed by means of an 
ingeniously contrived scoop or dipper made of 
walrus thong and having a long handle. They 
venture many miles out on the pack in pursuit of 
seal, remaining for days at a time, their food be- 
ing carried to them by the women and children. 
While thus engaged, the seal hunter is some- 
times confronted by a polar bear, for which con- 
tingency he is always prepared, though with this 
dreaded animal he always, if possible, eludes en- 
counter. These animals grow to enormous size 
as compared with black, cinnamon and other 
bears, and are generally found on the ice or in its 
immediate vicinity; the skins are of little value 
except when taken from the animal in winter. 

It must not be inferred, however, that all the 
natives of the Arctic coast engage in sealing dur- 
ing the winter months. A part of them, espe- 
cially those who are supplied with guns, go far 
south and east into the interior to hunt the rein- 
deer, trap wolves and foxes, and to trade with 
the people there, returning in time for the whal- 
ing season. Season after season passes without 
a whale being taken by them at perhaps half the 
settlements, yet they persevere, and as regularly 
as the season rolls around the whaling parties are 
fitted out and the oftener than otherwise unsuc- 
cessful hunt for whales is renewed. Discouraged 
with their want of success, some go off to the 



m 



206 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

east, others to the south, to barter seal oil and 
blubber for reindeer and other skins; others scat- 
ter along the coast or into the interior to hunt 
and fish, so that in the summer months the prin- 
cipal villages are quite deserted. Those who are 
too poor to own firearms eke out a miserable ex- 
istence by catching young reindeer and taking 
water fowl. In taking the latter an ivory spear 
with a long and slender shaft, the latter having 
three or four long ivory barbs in the middle, is 
used. It is thrown from a hand board with great 
force and precision a distance of twenty-five to 
thirty yards, and if the spear itself misses, the 
middle barbs are almost certain to catch and 
either kill or disable the bird. Another contri- 
vance for taking the birds consists of a number 
of slender thongs of equal length tied securely 
together at one end; on the opposite side of each 
thong or cord a stone of perhaps two or three 
ounces in weight is securely fastened; grasping 
this implement at the united end of the cords, the 
native hurls it into a flock of birds and rarely fails 
to secure one or more. If the bird is not killed 
one or more of the cords is almost certain to 
twine itself about its neck, and the weight of the 
stones prevents him from flying away, or if struck 
when on the wing is sure to bring him to the 
ground. They adhere largely to the use of bone, 
stone and ivory implements, and still retain the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 207 

art of chipping flint and shaping it into spear and 
arrow heads. 

There is no material difference in the charac- 
ter, habits and customs of the native people who 
inhabit the Arctic coast, all being Innuits or, as 
they are commonly known, Eskimos. And it is 
a significant fact that their language, if not alto- 
gether the same, is very similar to that of the 
Eskimos who live on the eastern side of the con- 
tinent — a fact that would seem to indicate not 
only the same origin, but that these people, great 
as is the distance between them, have more or 
less direct intercourse with each other. 

The Arctic Eskimos are, to all appearances, a 
healthy, robust people, in complexion and fea- 
tures not unlike the natives of southeastern 
Alaska — copper colored yet Hghter than the typ- 
ical North American Indian — with brown eyes 
and straight, coarse, black hair, but generally 
beardless. The younger women are not at all 
bad looking, but on the whole rather symmet- 
rical in form and feature; their hands and feet 
are small, and they are altogether graceful in 
their movements. They are kind and gentle 
in disposition, exceedingly hospitable, very af- 
fectionate towards their children, but not imbued 
with a very high appreciation of the virtue of 
chastity. There is no marriage ceremony among 
them, but they enter upon the marital relation 



208 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

at a very early age, and the wife has an equal, if 
not controlling- voice in the direction of domestic 
affairs. She is invariably consulted when a trade 
is on the tapis, and the husband never closes a 
bargain, however trifling, without the wife's as- 
sent. In some respects at least they are a most 
amiable and accommodating people. A tempor- 
ary exchange of wives is an established custom, 
to which the wives themselves make no objec- 
tion. A man whose wife is not sufficiently strong 
and robust to accompany him on a hunting ex- 
pedition effects an exchange for the wife of an- 
other who is better able to endure the fatigue 
and hardships of the contemplated journey 
and when the chase is ended each wife returns to 
her own topek or igloo. 

Though short in stature, both the men and 
women, generally, except those of advanced age, 
are very strong and possessed of great powers of 
endurance; were it otherwise, they could not live 
and dress as they do and long exist in so rigor- 
ous a climate. They have no religion, no form 
of worship, believing in but one form of spirit, 
and that an evil one, to whom they ascribe their 
every misfortune, and whom they are wont to 
frequently exorcise by incantation. They have 
no means of keeping a record of their ages, but 
it is safe to assume that because of the hardships 
and exposures they are obliged to undergo in 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 209 

their hard struggle for existence, none ever at- 
tain what would ordinarily be considered old age 
among a more favored people. 

They have, necessarily, summer and winter 
habitations — the latter being almost entirely un- 
derground, and habitable only when the earth is 
sohdly frozen; in warm weather, when the 
ground thaws on the surface, the water takes and 
holds undisputed possession of their tenements; 
as soon as the ground freezes in the early fall, 
they are cleared of the ice and water, and the 
topeks, which have afforded them shelter in the 
meantime, are abandoned till the summer comes 
again, when they are driven by the water from 
their igloos like rats out of their holes. Except 
that they are a little more subterranean these 
winter houses are very similar to the barrabaras 
of the Aleuts. The name of their underground 
dwellings in their language is "igloo." They one 
and all consist of a single room not more than ten 
by twelve feet in dimensions, some not so large, 
and into such narrow compass a dozen men, 
women and children (the latter are comparative- 
ly few in number) are wont to live during the 
long winter months — from October to June. 
The topeks are constructed of reindeer skins 
stretched on a framework of driftwood or the 
ribs of the whale, and rude and worthless as they 
appear, can be set up only at the expense of a 

14 



210 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

great deal of time and labor. Years elapse dur- 
ing which a Noowook native is engaged in col- 
lecting sufficient driftwood and whale ribs with 
which to construct his topek; then the reindeer 
skins for the covering are only obtained by long 
journeys into the interior, principally in the win- 
ter months, and involving much labor and great 
hardships. Altogether the lot of the Arctic na- 
tive, contented as he appears, is not one to be 
envied by even the lowest and meanest of human 
beings who live in almost any other part of the 
world. Nor can a more filthy people be found 
existing elsewhere on the globe. 

Men, women and children all chew and smoke 
tobacco, and a complete collection of their differ- 
ent styles of pipes, of wood, stone and carved 
ivory and bone, would fill a fair-sized case in one 
of the eastern museums. Some of these are most 
ingeniously constructed of empty cartridge 
shells, and others have bowls made of the necks 
of ordinary glass bottles. The ivory pipes, which 
are generally most elaborately carved, have a 
flanged bowl from one to two inches in length, 
with a base not more than sufficiently large to 
hold tobacco enough for two or three whiffs at 
most. The stems are most generally made of 
two pieces of ivory fitted and lashed closely to- 
gether with seal thong or sinew, the contact sides 
first being grooved, though some of the stems 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 211 

and bowls consist of a single piece of ivory, 
through which holes have been drilled from end 
to end, by some means no white visitor among 
them has been able to discover. What those good 
people who regard smoking as a pernicious habit 
as practiced by the white people would say could 
they see an Eskimo indulging in his or her pipe 
would be interesting to hear. The Eskimo 
smoker first fills the bottom of the bowl with 
reindeer hair and on top of that places a bit of 
tobacco no larger than a buckshot, and then set- 
tles down for a single long-drawn draught, which 
completely fills the lungs with bad-smelling 
smoke from the combination of hair and tobacco. 
He or she holds this smoke in the lungs until the 
smoker must either let go or suffocate — and it 
is not suprising that, as the Eskimo uses tobacco, 
a single whiff should constitute a whole smoke. 

Tattooing is one of the fine arts, so to speak, 
among these people; it is practiced among all 
the people from St. Michael's to Point Barrow, 
though confined almost exclusively to the fe- 
males. It extends no further, however, than to 
the indelible stain of from one to three stripes, 
extending from the mouth to a point under the 
chin, and has no significance other than of mere 
fashion. 

That they are very sociable in their habits may 
be inferred from what has already been said. 



212 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

They never strike or inflict upon their children 
corporal punishment of any kind, and, unlike 
the natives of some other parts of Alaska, are 
exceedingly careful of and zealous in providing 
for the wants and comforts of their aged parents 
or other relatives. On the other hand, they 
neither bury nor cremate their dead; the bodies 
of deceased persons are merely carried out some 
distance from the village and laid on the tundra, 
in which it would be difficult to dig a grave, with 
no other ceremony than a procession of rela- 
tives and friends to and from the place where 
the body is left. If the dead person be a man, 
his sled and hunting gear are broken to pieces 
and laid on the body; if a woman, her sewing 
kit and perhaps some household utensils she 
has been accustomed to use are placed at her 
side, after having first been broken or rendered 
useless. No attention is afterwards paid to the 
bodies, which are usually devoured by the dogs. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. ^13 



CHAPTER XII. 

Natural Resources — Future Great Gold Mining Field of 
the World — A Prediction not Long Ago Ridiculed 
Now Being Verified — Every Known Mineral in 
Alaska — Rich Soil and Luxurious Vegetation — 
Climate not Inimical to Agriculture and Horticulture 
— Large Areas of Tillable Lands — Wide Ranges and 
Nutritious Grasses for Cattle and Sheep — Interminable 
Forests of Valuable Timber — Fish Enough to Feed 
the Continent— All the Material Elements of Wealth 
Essential to the Building Up of a Great and Powerful 
State. 

But what of 4he natural resources of this vast 
public domain, aside from the wealth of precious 
metals found in the golden sands and gravel de- 
posits of its innumerable streams and gulches, 
and the incomputable millions held in the 
"mother lodes" which almost everywhere tra- 
verse her shaggy-breasted mountains? What, if 
any, are its other resources, the utilization of 
which may be depended upon to add in greater 
or lesser degree to the prosperity and wealth of 
the nation? To such inquiries the truthful an- 
swer can be made, that, while Alaska is by no 
means a country overflowing with milk and 
honey, that though her climate is inimical to the 
successful cultivation of tropical products, no 



214 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

government on earth is anywhere possessed of 
an outlying province nearly so rich in the extent, 
if not variety, of its natural resources. In what 
he shall say of other than the mineral resources 
of Alaska, the author is perfectly well aware that 
he will subject himself to the ridicule of un- 
believers, the name of whom is legion; but he is 
perfectly content to await the developments of 
the future in the perfect confidence that they will 
prove the truth of all he asserts. He is not a 
stranger to such ridicule. He was made a recip- 
ient thereof when, in 1886, in an official report to 
the Honorable Secretary of the Interior, speak- 
ing of the mineral resources of the territory, of 
which he was then the chief executive, he used 
these words: 

"How long Congress may continue to deem it 
wise and consistent to so legislate as to hinder 
and retard rather than encourage and promote 
natural resources that may be made to contrib- 
ute untold millions to the public wealth I may 
not be permitted to venture a guess, but I do 
hazard the prediction that Alaska is the coming 
great gold and silver mining field of the world, 
and that the history of her progress and develop- 
ment during the next twenty years will most 
positively refute the theory of those public men 
who seemingly base their every official act, so 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. ^15 

far as her interests are concerned, on the mis- 
taken belief that she is at best but a frigid waste." 

That prediction, already partially fulfilled, is 
on the eve of a certain perfect realization, and the 
author can afford to look to the future for a com- 
plete and perfect vindication of the truth of that 
which he is about to write concerning the other 
than mineral resources of the territory. 

Concerning the wealth of Alaska in precious 
metals enough, perhaps, has been said in the pre- 
ceding pages. It is simply beyond computa- 
tion. In the sands of its every stream and gulch 
is found at least the color of gold, while almost 
everywhere in its mountain ranges, on island and 
mainland, from the extreme south to the far- 
thest north, are found the quartz ledges which 
constitute the original sources of supply to 
gravel deposits than which none others ever yet 
discovered have been more prolific of golden 
treasure at the same stage of development. And 
yet, it may be truthfully said that scarcely a 
scratch has been made in the mountains which 
encompass her multitudinous gold-bearing 
ledges, while not more than one in a hundred 
of her streams and gulches have as yet been fairly 
or even partially prospected. In regard to quartz 
mining it may be said with equal truth that there 
have been no failures not directly chargeable to 
mismanagement, insufficient capital, or lack of 



216 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ordinary prudence in the selection of property 
coupled with injudicious expenditure in carrying 
on the work of development. 

Very little has been accomplished, or indeed 
attempted, in the way of agricultural develop- 
ment in Alaska. There are no practical farmers 
in the country, though here and there a "ranch" 
has been started for the growing of root crops, 
while in nearly all the towns and settlements are 
to be found carelessly cultivated gardens, in some 
of which many of the vegetables are grown to 
perfection at the expense of very little labor. No 
one has ever gone to Alaska with the idea or be- 
lief that either its soil or climate is in the least 
degree adapted to agricultural or horticultural 
pursuits, but invariably with a view to engaging 
in other business. Consequently there are no 
experienced farmers or gardeners in the country, 
and hence it cannot be said that anything like a 
fair test of the adaptability of the soil and climate 
to the growth of farm and garden products has 
ever been made. While it is undoubtedly true 
that the proportion of arable land in southeast- 
ern Alaska is comparatively small, it is, neverthe- 
less, possessed of a rich soil, in which most ordi- 
nary garden vegetables can be grown to matu- 
rity, though owing to the excessive moisture the 
seasons in which grain might be expected to 
ripen would necessarily be few and far between. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 217 

This, however, is a condition prevalent only on 
the islands and immediate coast of the southeast- 
ern section, and perhaps a few of the Aleutian 
Islands; it does not obtain in the interior, where 
there are large bodies of arable lands with a lux- 
uriant growth of wild grasses, nor along the 
coast to the north and west of Sitka. It is not 
generally known, yet nevertheless true, that, 
while the winters in all those parts of Alaska 
lying beyond the influence of the ocean currents 
are excessively cold, the summer's heat is corre- 
spondingly intense. So, along the coast to the 
north and west of Sitka, noticeably at Cook Inlet, 
though the winters are colder than in the south- 
eastern section, the summers are much warmer 
and drier, thus affording climatic conditions far 
more favorable to the growth of farm and garden 
products. 

Careful personal observation and inquiry will 
serve to convince any unprejudiced person pos- 
sessed of ordinary intelligence that there is not 
only a large area of tillable lands in the territory, 
with a cHmate not at all inimical to successful 
gardening, but that in many localities all the 
cereals, except corn, can be grown to perfection 
and probable large yield. Barley and oats have 
been successfully grown in the Cook Inlet coun- 
try, where there is a large acreage of compara- 
tively level land, while the more hardy vegetables 



218 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

do well on Kadiak and the Aleutian Islands, and 
even as far north as St. Michael's, which is in 
latitude 63 degrees 30 minutes, it has been dem- 
onstrated that some products of the garden can 
be successfully grown. It is hardly to be sup- 
posed that a soil and climate in which the wild 
timothy, blue-joint and red-top grasses grow to 
a height of from four to six feet, maturing and 
casting their seed as early as the middle of Au- 
gust, as they do in the interior of Alaska, cannot 
be made to produce wheat, oats, rye and barley, 
or that in a climate where nearly, if not quite, a 
dozen varieties of wild fruits grow and ripen in 
great profusion, domestic fruits may not be suc- 
cessfully grown. Among the wild berries re- 
ferred to may be mentioned the red and black 
currant, the gooseberry, cranberry, whortleberry 
and strawberry, which last grows to unusual size, 
and is found in many parts of the territory, even 
within the shadows of the great ice-clad Mount 
St. Elias. 

But it is not here assumed, however fertile the 
soil, that Alaska will ever attain agricultural dis- 
tinction in the way of a production more than 
sufficient to the support of a large population 
within her own borders. It is safe to assert, how- 
ever, that as her population increases through 
and by reason of the development of her other 
great natural resources, her agricultural and hor- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 219 

ticultural capabilities will come to be recognized, 
and made to yield an abundant food supply for 
all her people, even to the million. The condi- 
tion for the successful growth of the cereals, in 
a very large part of Alaska, are identical with 
those of the great wheat-growing sections of 
Russia, and, indeed, of some parts of the States 
and Canada. Though in the sections referred to 
the winters are very severe, the summers are cor- 
respondingly hot, and when the seed is sown 
the frost, which is never entirely out of the 
ground, is certain to supply all the moisture 
necessary to a healthy growth, and there can be 
no failure because of a drouth. Why may not the 
history of Russia and the southern-central prov- 
inces of Canada, in the matter of agricultural pro- 
duction, be made to repeat itself in that large 
part of Alaska where precisely similar conditions 
as to soil and climate prevail? 

There is no good reason why the growing of 
cattle and sheep in Alaska may not be profitably 
engaged in on a large scale, provided a market 
for the surplus increase can be had. There is, 
in many parts of the territory, especially on the 
principal islands, a luxuriant growth of grasses 
which continue green and succulent for at least 
nine months of the year, and the winters of south- 
eastern Alaska, of Kadiak and the Aleutian 
Islands being very much milder than those of 



220 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Montana and the Dakotas, it is safe to assert that 
cattle and sheep can be permitted to run at large 
and subsist themselves the whole year with less 
loss than in the states named. The few cattle in 
the territory thrive and do well on the native 
grasses and there is sufficient pasturage for in- 
numerable herds on the islands, where there is an 
abundance of water, and where they can be 
grazed without expense for either fencing or 
herding, with not so much necessity for winter 
protection and feeding as exists in some of the 
great cattle-growing states. 

When the United States Government pur- 
chased Alaska it did not pay more than a mere 
fraction of what the territory would be actually 
worth were every other natural resource than its 
cod banks wiped completely out of existence, to 
say nothing- of the salmon fisheries, which every 
year yield a product the market value of which is 
nearly, if not quite, equal to the whole amount 
of the consideration paid to Russia. The cod 
banks are of immense extent. They are found 
around the whole southeastern shore and in the 
numerous waterways of the Alexander Archi- 
pelago, and along the shore for 600 miles north- 
west of Sitka. They abound in Cook Inlet, Bris- 
tol Bay, and all along the Aleutian chain, the 
Shumagin banks alone being of sufficient extent 
to afford employment to as many vessels and 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 221 

fishermen as those employed in cod fishing on 
the north Atlantic coast. The whole eastern 
part of Bering Sea is a submarine plateau, where 
soundings of not more than fifty fathoms are 
found over an area of at least 50,000 square 
miles, and here, too, the cod abounds. In fact, 
the whole coast frontage of Alaska, from Dixon's 
Entrance on the south to Bering Strait on the 
north, including the waters adjacent to the Aleu- 
tian Islands, is one grand and inexhaustible reser- 
voir of food fishes, principal among which is the 
cod. The banks are all within easy reach of safe 
and commodious harbors, while they are not 
more distant from San Francisco and Puget 
Sound ports than-are those of the north Atlantic 
from Boston and Portland. The time is coming 
when the fishermen of the east will turn their at- 
tention to the safer and more prolific waters of 
the North Pacific, and when, with low freights 
to the east, the cod fisheries of Alaska will bid 
successfully for a market as far east, at least, as 
Chicago and St. Louis. 

Another excellent food fish found in great 
abundance in Alaskan waters is the haUbut. They 
are found and can be taken in great numbers all 
along the southern coast, the size ranging from 
the "chicken" halibut to those weighing from 
three to four hundred pounds. They are of fine 
flavor and excellent quality, and there can be no 



222 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

good reason why they may not ere long take a 
prominent place in the list of exports from the 
territory. They now form a very important and 
desirable part of the domestic food supply. 

The herring, which resemble those of the 
North Sea of Europe, are not less plentiful than 
the cod and salmon. They are found all along 
the southern coast, arriving sometimes as early 
as the middle of April, and remaining several 
months. They come in incalculable numbers and 
throng the waters to such an extent that the na- 
tives not only take all they want by the simple 
means of an oval-shaped stick with three or four 
sharpened nails in one end, but likewise secure 
tons upon tons of the roe without killing the fish. 
Herring roe is to the native Alaskan what the 
shad roe is to the dweller on the Susquehanna 
and the Potomac — it is a very important part of 
their winter diet, as well as a luxury, and their 
mode of securing it is very simple. Lashing a 
lot of hemlock boughs to lines of suitable length, 
one end of a line is made fast to the prow of a 
canoe and the other to the stern and given suffi- 
cient slack to bring the boughs two or three feet 
under water. Thus equipped, the native paddles 
out to the herring grounds, which are coexten- 
sive with the whole of the inland passages, drops 
his line of boughs over the side of the canoe, and, 
whiHng away an hour or two, possibly dreaming 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 223 

what the harvest will be, pulls them up coated an 
inch thick with the coveted spawn. Taking the 
boughs ashore, they are hung up or spread out in 
the sun for the roe to dry, after which it is 
stripped off by the women and put away in oil 
for future use. Reference to this native mode 
of securing the roe is only made as being indica- 
tive of the abundance of herring in Alaskan 
waters. 

Professor Bean, of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, is authority for the statement that there are 
no less than seventy-five species of food fishes to 
be found in Alaska. The whitefish abounds in 
the rivers and lakes, where the salmon trout is 
also plentiful, while the fresh waters are literally 
alive with pike, grayling, speckled trout and 
blackfish. Even an enthusiast to whom the truth 
is known runs no risk of exaggeration when 
writing of the extent and value of the Alaska 
fisheries. 

Another important and natural resource of 
Alaska will be found in her vast and seemingly 
interminable forests, in which the spruce-pine, 
hemlock and red and yellow cedar predominate. 
The trees, especially the spruce, grow to large 
size, particularly so in the valleys and along the 
banks of the creeks and rivers of the southeastern 
section. The fact that the trees growing imme- 
diately on the coast of the mainland and of the 



224 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

islands are generally small and low-limbed, leads 
the casual observer, looking at the country from 
the deck of a passing steamer, to the natural con- 
clusion that there cannot be any really good tim- 
ber in the territory; but a very short walk back 
from the shore will serve to disabuse his mind in 
that regard. He vv^ill see spruce pines from five 
to eight feet in diameter, perfectly straight, and 
without a limb below a height of from fifty 'to 
seventy-five feet, and hemlocks and cedars near- 
ly, if not quite, as large. The spruce makes ex- 
cellent lumber, very similar to the southern pine, 
while the yellow cedar is specially adapted to the 
manufacture of the finer grades of cabinet ware. 
But, were it otherwise, were these great forests 
practically worthless from a lumber producing 
point of view, they will yet be found of inestima- 
ble value in connection with the mining indus- 
tries of the territory to the successful operation 
of which a cheap and abundant supply of timber 
is a most important essential. They are, how- 
ever, of otherwise great prospective value, and 
will sooner or later be made to furnish a large 
part of the lumber needed to supply the home 
demand. 

Aside from the fur trade, which is on the de- 
cline, and the whaling industry, Alaska is pos- 
sessed of all the material elements essential to the 
growth of a great and powerful state. If not the 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. ^25 

granary of the nation, she is fast coming to be 
recognized as the great storehouse of that which 
is the standard of value all over the world, and 
which will readily purchase all that which she 
cannot herself produce. In her vast mountain 
ranges are stored away gold and silver not alone, 
but nearly every other kind of mineral in the 
least adapted to the wants of commerce or the 
uses of mankind. With her wealth of precious 
metals, her great seams of coal, mountains of 
iron and veins of copper, her illimitable forests, 
wide area of grazing lands, fisheries from w^hich 
the world's millions might be fed, to say nothing 
of the possibility, even probability, in the way of 
agricultural and horticultural development, who 
shall undertake to either definitely estimate or 
fix a limit to the value of Alaska's undeveloped 
resources? 



15 



\ 



APPENDIX. 

The act creating a civil government for 
Alaska, approved May 17, 1884, created a land 
district and put in full force and effect the gen- 
eral mining laws, but expressly declared that 
nothing contained in said act should be con- 
strued to put in force the general land laws of 
the United States. 

The act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat., 1095; Ap- 
pendix 42, p. 193), provides for the survey and 
entry of lands for trading and manufacturing 
purposes and for town sites only. To carry into 
effect the provisions of this act the Secretary 
of the Interior was authorized to prescribe the 
necessary rules and regulations, which are as 
follows : 

I. Applications for surveys must be made in 
writing, by the person entitled to purchase land 
under said act, or by the authorized agent of the 
association or corporation so entitled. The ap- 
plication must particularly describe the charac- 
ter of the land sought to be surveyed, and, as ac- 
curately as possible, its geographical position, 
with the character, extent, and approximate 
value of the improvements. If a private survey 
had previously been made of the land occupied 
by the applicant, a copy of the plat and field notes 
227 



228 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

of such survey should accompany the applica- 
tion, which must also state that the land con- 
tains neither coal nor the precious metals, with 
reasons for such statement; that no part of the 
land described in the application includes im- 
provements made by or in possession of another, 
prior to the passage of said act; that it does not 
include any land to which natives of Alaska have 
prior rights, by virtue of actual occupation; that 
it does not include a portion of any town site or 
lands occupied by missionary stations, or any 
lands occupied or reserved by the United States 
for public purposes, or selected by the United 
States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, or 
any lands reserved from sale under the provisions 
of this act. These statements must be ©verified 
by.affidavit. 

2. If, upon examination, the application shall 
be approved by the ex officio surveyor-general, 
he will furnish the applicants with two separate 
estimates, one for the field work, and one for 
ofhce work, the latter to include clerk hire and 
the necessary stationery. The ex ofBcio sur- 
veyor-general will be careful to estimate ade- 
quate sums in order to avoid the necessity for 
additional deposits. 

3. Upon receiving such estimates, applicants 
may deposit in a proper United States deposit- 
ory, to the credit of the Treasury of the United 
States, on account of surveying the public lands 
in Alaska, and expenses incident thereto, the 
sums so estimated as the total cost of the survey, 
including field and office work. 

4. The original certificate must in every case 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 229 

be forwarded to the Secretary of the Treasury, 
the dupHcate to the ex officio surveyor-general, 
the tripHcate to be retained by the applicant as 
his receipt. 

5. The triplicate certificate of deposit will be 
receivable in payment to the extent of the 
amount of such certificate, for the land pur- 
chased, the surveying of which is paid for out 
of such deposit, as provided in section 2403 of 
the Revised Statutes. (See par. 9, post.) 

6. Where the amount of the certificate or cer- 
tificates is less than the value of the lands taken, 
the balance must be paid in cash. But where 
the certificate is for an amount greater than the 
cost of the land, and is surrendered in full pay- 
ment for such land, the United States Marshal, 
ex officio surveyor-general, will indorse on the 
triplicate certificate the amount for which it is 
received, and will charge the United States with 
that amount only. There is no provision of law 
authorizing the issue of duplicate certificates for 
certificates lost or destroyed. 

7. Where the amount of the deposit is 
greater than the cost of survey, including field 
and office w^ork, the excess is repayable, as under 
the provisions of section 2402 of the Revised 
Statutes, upon an account to be stated by the ex 
officio surveyor-general, who will in all cases be 
careful to express upon the plats of each survey 
the amount deposited as the cost of survey in 
the field and office work, and the amount to be 
refunded in each case. No provision of lav/ 
exists, however, for refunding to other than the 
depositor. 



230 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

8. Before transmitting accounts for refund- 
ing excesses, the ex ofBcio surveyor-general will 
indorse on the back of the triplicate certificate 
the following: *'$ refunded to 



-, by account transmitted to the General 

Land Ofifice with letter dated ," and 

will state in the account that he has made such 
indorsement. Where the whole amount depos- 
ited is to be refunded the ex ofificio surveyor- 
general will require the depositor to surrender 
the triplicate certificate, and will transmit it to 
this office with the account. 

9. The provisions of section 2403 of the Re- 
vised Statutes, as amended by the act of March 
3, 1879 (20 Stat, at Large, p. 352), relating to 
the assignment of certificates by indorsement, 
ar^ not applicable to certificates of deposit for 
surveys in Alaska, under said act of March 3, 
1 89 1, for the reason that the former statute con- 
templates the use of the certificates, after assign- 
ment, by settlers under the pre-emption and 
homestead laws of the United States and not 
otherwise. Therefore, these triplicate certifi- 
cates can only be used by the respective deposit- 
ors in payment for lands in Alaska. 

10. The amount shown on the face of the 
certificate to have been deposited for "office 
work" will be placed to the credit of the ex 
officio surveyor-general, and, upon his requisi- 
tion, an advance will be made to him from the 
Treasury Department to pay the expenses of 
said "office work." He will render quarterly 
accounts of such funds to the General Land 



1 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 331 

Office upon blanks furnished him for that pur- 
pose. 

11. The amount deposited for "field work" 
will be placed to the credit of said work, and will 
be expended in the payment of the surveying 
accounts of the deputy surveyors, when the sur- 
veys are accepted and the accounts adjusted in 
this office, and transmitted to the First Comp- 
troller of the Treasury for payment from said 
deposits. 

12. The contract system is not deemed ap- 
plicable to the class of surveys contemplated by 
the said act of March 3, 1891, owing to the small 
amounts which will doubtless be involved in 
many of the surveys, and particularly in view of 
the great distance between this office and that of 
the ex officio surveyor-general, and the conse- 
quent inconvenient delays in correspondence. 
The ex officio surveyor-general will therefore 
appoint as many competent deputy surveyors as 
may be necessary for the prompt execution of 
the surveys, who will each be required to 
enter into a bond in the penal sum of 
five thousand dollars ($5,000), for the 
faithful execution, according to law and the 
instructions of the Commissioner of the General 
Land Office and the United States Marshal, ex 
officio surveyor-general of Alaska, of all surveys 
which are required of him to be made in pursu- 
ance of his appointment as United States Deputy 
Surveyor, and for the return of said surveys to 
the United States Marshal, ex officio surveyor- 
general, as required by law and instructions. The 
bonds, in duplicate, will be forwarded for accept- 



233 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

ance by this office. Upon appointment the 
deputy must take the oath of office required by 
section 2223 of the Revised Statutes. 

13. When the duplicate certificates of deposit 
of the amounts estimated for field and office 
work shall have been received by the ex officio 
surveyor-general, the requisite instructions for 
the surveys, and making returns thereof will be 
issued to the deputy surveyor who may be desig- 
nated to do the work. The amount of compen- 
sation to the deputy surveyor must be stated in 
the instructions, and the same must not exceed 
the amount deposited for the field work. The 
land to be surveyed under any one application 
cannot exceed one hundred and sixty acres, and 
it must be in one compact body, and as nearly 
in square form as the circumstances and config- 
uration of the land will admit. 

14. The instruments used in the execution 
of these surveys should be the same as those 
required for subdivisional surveys of public lands 
(see paragraph 6, page 18, of Manual), or an 
engineer's transit of approved make, and must 
be registered and tested at the ex officio sur- 
veyor-general's office, previous to the deputy 
commencing work, as directed in paragraph 7, 
page 19, of Manual. 

15. The surveys will be numbered consecu- 
tively, beginning with number one. The true 
magnetic variation must be noted at the begin- 
ning point of each survey, as well as any marked 
changes during the progress of the work, and at 
the end of each line of the survey the character 
of the soil and the amount of timber, etc., must 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 233 

be noted at the end of the record thereof. The 
requirements in the "summary of objects and 
data required to be noted," as set forth in the in- 
structions for the survey of public lands (Revised 
Manual of Surveying Instructions, dated Decem- 
ber 2, 1889, pages 44 and 45), must be observed 
by the deputy in these surveys. All corners must 
be marked by stone monuments, containing not 
less than 1,728 cubic inches. At the beginning 
point upon the outboundaries of each tract sur- 
veyed, a corner must be established with two pits 
(when practicable) of the size required for stand- 
ard township corners, one upon each side of the 
corner on the line, and six feet distant. Upon 
the side of such corner facing the claim the 
stone will be marked "S. No. — " (for Survey 
No. — ), and immediately under the same, the 
letters ''Beg. Cor. I" (for Beginning Corner 
One). These marks must be neatly and deeply 
cut, for the sake of legibility and permanence. 
From the beginning corner the deputy will pro- 
ceed to survey the several lines of the tract, in 
accordance with the instructions of the ex officio 
surveyor-general, marking each corner on the 
side facing the claim with number of the survey, 
and "Cor. No. II," "Cor. No. Ill," etc., with pits 
of the size hereinbefore prescribed, upon the 
lines closing upon and starting from each corner 
and six feet distant. Such other marks, in addi- 
tion to those above described, will be placed 
upon the corners, as may be required by the ex 
officio surveyor-general in his special written 
instructions. As far as practicable, bearings and 
distances must be taken from each of the corners 



m 

m 



i 

i 



Pi. 



i'i|i 



234 ALASKA; ITS HISTORY, 

to two or more trees, or prominent natural ob- 
jects, if any, within a convenient distance, in the 
same manner as required in the instructions for 
the survey of pubHc lands, and such trees or ob- 
jects must be marked with the number of the 
survey and underneath the same the letters "B. 
T." or "B. O." as the case may be. 

1 6. Where a tract to be surveyed fronts upon 
tide water, the front or meander line of the tract 
will be run at ordinary high-water mark, and the 
side lines of the tract will terminate at such high- 
water mark, thus excluding from survey and dis- 
posal all lands situated between high and low 
water marks. At the corners marking the ter- 
mini of lines at high-water mark one pit only 
will be dug, of the size prescribed in the Manual 
for meander corners, on the side toward the land 
and six feet distant. At all corners where pits 
are impracticable, a mound of stone (consisting 
of not less than four stones, the mound to be at 
least one and a half feet high with two feet base), 
must be constructed, and in cases where pits are 
practicable, if the deputy prefers raising a mound 
of stone, or stone covered with earth, as more 
likely to perpetuate the corner, he will be per- 
mitted to do so. For a mound of stone "covered 
with earth" the height and base will be the same 
as required by the Manual for a mound of earth 
for township corners. Boundaries or portions 
of boundaries of previously established surveys, 
which also form a portion of the boundaries of 
the claim to be surveyed, will be adopted so far 
as common to both surveys. 

17. The proper blank books for field notes 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 235 

will be furnished by the ex officio surveyor-gen- 
eral, and in such books the deputy surveyor must 
make a faithful, distinct, and minute record of 
everything officially done and observed by him- 
self and his assistants pursuant to instructions 
in relation to running, measuring, and marking 
lines, and establishing corners, and present as 
far as possible a full and complete topographical 
description of the tract surveyed. From the data 
thus recorded at the time when the work is done 
on the ground, the deputy must prepare the true 
field notes of the surveys executed by him, and 
return the same to the ex officio surveyor-gen- 
eral at the earliest practicable date, after the com- 
pletion of his work in the field. The true field 
notes are in no case to be made out in the office 
of the ex officio surveyor-general. The true 
field notes and the transcript field notes for this 
office must be written in a bold, legible hand, in 
durable black ink, upon paper of foolscap size. 
Each survey will be complete in itself. The first 
or title page of each set of field notes is to. de- 
scribe the subject-matter of the same, the locus 
of the survey, by whom surveyed, the date of the 
instructions, and the dates of the commencement 
and completion of the work. A general descrip- 
tion of each tract must be given at the end of 
the field-notes of the survey of the same, which 
description must embrace a brief statement of 
the main features of the tract surveyed, charac- 
ter of the land, timber, and other natural growth, 
whether there are any indications of mineral, 
characteristics of mountains, streams, etc.,, and 
the extent and character of the improvements. 



m 



m 



I 



236 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

All facts relative to the present occupancy of the 
land must be particularly noted. In preparing 
the true field notes of the survey, the form pre- 
scribed in the Manual will be followed as nearly 
as practicable. The names of assistants, with du- 
ties assigned to each, and the preliminary and 
final oaths of assistants, and final oath of the dep- 
uty, must be attached to the field notes of each 
survey. The deputy surveyor must return with 
the field notes a topographical map or plat of 
the survey. As far as practicable all objects de- 
scribed in the field notes and the main features 
of the tract surveyed, including location of build- 
ings, streams, mountains, etc., must be protract- 
ed upon such plat as accurately as possible. The 
course and length of each line will be expressed 
upon the plat. The deputy will note all objec- 
tions to his survey that may be brought to his 
knowledge, and the ex officio surveyor-general 
will promptly report to this office all complaints 
made to him, and send up all protests filed in his 
ofBce, together with a full report thereon. 

i8. From the plat and field notes submitted 
by the deputy surveyor, the official plat will be 
prepared in triplicate, the original to be retained 
in the office of the ex officio surveyor-general, 
the duplicate to be forwarded to this office, and 
the triplicate, after notice of approval by the 
Commissioner, to be filed in United States Dis- 
trict Land Office. All plats of these surveys 
must be made upon drawing paper of the best 
quality, and of uniform size, 19 by 24 inches (the 
size used for township plats of public land sur- 
veys). Upon each plat will be placed an appro- 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 237 

priate title and the certificate of approval by ex 
officio surveyor-general. The title will be placed 
upon the upper right-hand corner of the plat. 
Immediately below will be placed the ex officio 
surveyor-general's approval, with sufficient space 
on the lower right-hand corner for the Commis- 
sioner's approval. In all cases where the tracts 
are bounded in part by meanders, a table of the 
courses and distances of such meanders will be 
placed upon the plat. When the claim ap- 
proaches one hundred and sixty acres in extent, 
the plat may be protracted upon a scale of five 
chains to one inch. For surveys of smaller ex- 
tent the scale may be suitably increased. A clear 
margin two inches in width should be left upon 
all sides of each plat. The magnetic declination 
must be indicated upon the plats; also the scale 
of protraction. The use of all fluids, except a 
preparation of India ink of good quality, must 
be avoided by the draughtsman in the delinea- 
tion of these surv^eys. All lines, figures, etc., 
must be sharply defined. All lettering on the 
plats must be clear and sharp in outline and de- 
sign, and ornamentation of any kind is prohib- 
ited. 

19. One copy of the instructions to the dep- 
uty must be forwarded with the returns of sur- 
vey, and one copy must accompany the account 
of the deputy. The returns and account will be 
forwarded with separate letters of transmittal. 

20. The survey having been approved, it shall 
be the duty of such person, association, or cor- 
poration, within SIX months after notice thereof, 
to apply in writing to the United States Court 



m 



m 



238 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Commissioner, ex officio register of the Sitka 
land office, to make proof and entry, in due form, 
reciting the name of the party who will make the 
entry, the name and geographical location of the 
land applied for, the place and date of making- 
proof, and the names of four witnesses by whom 
it is proposed to establish the right of entry. This 
notice will be published by said commissioner 
once a week for six consecutive weeks at the ap- 
plicant's expense, in a newspaper published 
nearest to the land applied for. Copies of said 
notice must be posted in the office of the ex 
officio register, and in a conspicuous place upon 
the land applied for, for thirty days next preced- 
ing the date of making proof. The required 
proof shall consist of the affidavits of the appli- 
cant and two of the published witnesses, and shall 
show: 

First. The actual use and occupancy of the 
land as a trading post or for manufacturing pur- 
poses. 

Second. The date when the land was first so 
occupied. 

Third. The number of inhabitants and char- 
acter and value of improvements thereon, and 
the annual value of the trade or business con- 
ducted upon the land. 

Fourth. The non-mineral character of the 
land as prescribed in said act. 

Fifth. That no portion of the land applied for 
is occupied or reserved for any purpose by the 
United States, or occupied or claimed by any 
natives of Alaska, or occupied as a town site or 
missionary station, and that the tract does not 



I 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 239 

include improvements made by or in possession 
of another person, association, or corporation 
prior to the passage of said act. 

Sixth. If the entry is made for the benefit 
of an individual, he must likewise prove his cit- 
izenship or file record evidence of his declaration 
of intention to become a citizen. 

Seventh. If the entry is made for the benefit 
of an association, that and the further fact that 
over 20 per cent, of the stock of the association 
is not held by aliens, must be established by the 
certificate of the secretary of the association. 

Eighth. If the entry is made for the benefit 
of a corporation, that must be established by the 
certificate of the secretary of the State of Ore- 
gon, or any other officer having custody of the 
record of incorporation, and the further fact 
that over twenty per cent, of the stock of such 
incorporated company is not held by aliens must 
be established by the certificate of the secretary 
of the company. 

Ninth. Proof of publication of notice for the 
required time, consisting of the affidavit of the 
publisher to that effect accompanied by a copy of 
the published notice, together with the certifi- 
cate of the ex officio register as to the posting of 
the notice in his office and the affidavit of the 
party who posted the notice upon the land ap- 
plied for, reciting the fact and date of posting 
said notices and that the same so remained for 
the specified time hereinbefore required. 

21. When the proof has been examined and 
found satisfactory to the said ex officio register 
and surveyor-general, and the certificate of pur- 



240 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

chase and receipt for the purchase price respect- 
ively issued by them, all the papers will be for- 
warded to this office, and if found to be complete 
and the entry to have been made in accordance 
with these instructions, patent will issue in due 
course. 

'22. If upon the day appointed for making 
proof and payment for any tract of land by a 
person, association, or corporation, any other 
person, or the representative of any association 
or corporation, should appear and protest 
against the allowance of the entry, such protest- 
ant should be heard and permitted to cross-ex- 
amine the claimant and his witnesses, and the 
complaint and the facts thus developed will be 
duly considered by the ex officio register and sur- 
yeyor-general and such action taken as they may 
deem proper. Should the protestant desire to 
carry his action into a contest so as to introduce 
the testimony of witnesses either for the Govern- 
ment or in his own behalf, he should be required 
by said officers to file a sworn and corroborated 
statement of his grounds of action, and that the 
contest is not initiated for the purpose of harass- 
ing the claimant and extorting money from him 
under a compromise, but in good faith to pros- 
ecute the same to a final determination; and this 
affidavit being filed, the said officers will imme- 
diately proceed to determine the controversy, 
fixing a time and place for the hearing of the re- 
spective claims of the interested parties, giving 
each the usual notice thereof and a fair oppor- 
tunity to present their interests in accordance 
with the principles of law and equity applicable 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 341 

to the case as prescribed by the rules for the 
conduct of such cases before registers and re- 
ceivers of other local land offices. At the close 
of the case or as soon thereafter as their duties 
will permit, said officers will render their decision | 

in writing, give due notice to all parties in in- | 

terest thereof, and at the earliest practicable date 
forward the papers to this office, together with 
any appeal that may have been filed from their 
decision. Appeals from the action of this office 
will lie to the Secretary of the Interior, as in other 
matters of like character. 

23. All town-site entries in said Territory are 
to be made by trustees, to be appointed by the 
Secretary of the Interior, according to the spirit 
and intent of section 2387, United States Re- 
vised Statutes, which section provides that the 
entries of land for such purposes are to be made 
in trust for the several use and benefit of the oc- 
cupants thereof, according to their respective in- 
terests, and at the minimum price, which in these 
cases shall be construed to mean $1.25 per acre. 
When the inhabitants of a place and their occu- 
pations and requirements constitute more than 
a mere trading post, but are less than one hun- 
dred in number, the town-site entry shall be re- 
stricted to one hundred and sixty acres; but 
where the inhabitants are in number one hundred 
and less than two hundred, the town-site entry 
may embrace any area not exceeding three hun- 
dred and twenty acres; and in cases* where the 
inhabitants number more than two hundred, the 
town-site entry may embrace any area not ex- 
ceeding six hundred and forty acres. It will be 

16 



y 



24^ ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

observed that no more than six hundred and 
forty acres shall be embraced in one town-site 
entry in said Territory. 

The system of public surveys not having been 
extended over any portion of the Territory of 
Alaska, and no provision being made in said act 
for the payment of the cost of officially making 
a special survey of the exterior Hues of the town 
sites to be entered thereunder, it becomes nec- 
essary for the occupants of any town site in said 
Territory, as a prerequisite to having an entry 
made of the land claimed by them, to proceed 
in the same manner and form to secure the spe- 
cial survey of the land, as above prescribed for 
applicants for lands in said Territory for trade 
and manufacturing purposes. To that end the 
rules above set forth and numbered one to 
nineteen, inclusive, are hereby made applicable 
in manner, form, and detail, to such occupants 
or their agent in applying for and securing the 
execution of the special survey of the outboun- 
daries of such town sites, the occupants or agent 
to be reimbursed for the money thus expended 
as hereinafter provided. 

24. The fee-simple title to certain real estate 
in the towns of Sitka and Kadiak was conferred 
under Russian rule upon certain individuals and 
the Greek Oriental Church, and confirmed by the 
treaty concluded March 30, 1867, between the 
United States and the Emperor of Russia (15 
Stat, at Large, 539); other real property is now 
held and occupied by the United States in several 
of the Alaska towns for school and other public 
purposes; while it is perhaps desirable that still 



I 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 243 

Other lots or blocks in those towns that take ad- 
vantage of the provisions of said act should be 
reserved to meet the future requirements for 
school purposes, or as sites for Government 
buildings; therefore, the governor, judge of the 
district court, and marshal of the Territory of 
Alaska are constituted a board and it is hereby 
made a part of their official duties, as soon as 
notified by the United States Marshal that the 
duplicate receipt for the money deposited to de- 
fray the costs of a special survey of the exterior 
lines of such town site has been received by him, 
to go upon the land applied for and inquire into 
the title to the several private claims held there- 
in under Russian conveyances, and to fix and de- 
termine the proper metes and bounds of the 
same, as originally granted and claimed at the 
date of our acquisition of said Territory. Such 
board will duly notify the present owners of said 
private claims both of their right to submit tes- 
timony and documents, either in person or by 
attorney, in support of their several claims and 
of their right, within thirty days from receipt of 
notice of the conclusions of said board, to file 
an appeal therefrom, with said board, for trans- 
mission to this office. Should any one of such 
parties be dissatisfied with the decision of this 
office in such a case, he may still further prose- 
cute an appeal to the Secretary of the Interior 
upon such terms as shall be prescribed in each 
individual case. Proper evidence of notice 
should be taken by said board in all cases, and a 
record of all testimony submitted to them should 
be kept. If an appeal is taken, the same, to- 



244 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

gether with the decision of the board and all 
papers and evidence affecting the claims of the 
appellant, should be forwarded direct to this of- 
fice. Should no appeal be taken, the report of 
the board should be filed with the United States 
Marshal, ex officio surveyor-general, for his use 
and guidance, as hereinafter directed. 

It shall also be the official duty of said board 
to approximately fix and determine the metes 
and bounds of all lots and blocks in any such 
town site now occupied by the Government for 
school or other public purposes, and of all un- 
claimed lots or blocks, which, in their judgment, 
should be reserved for school or any other pur- 
pose; and to make report of such investigations 
to the ex officio surveyor-general, for his use and 
guidance, as also hereinafter directed, should no 
appeal be filed therefrom. 

Should an appeal from the action or decision 
of such board be filed in any case, no further 
action will be taken by the ex officio surveyor- 
general until the matter has been finally decided 
by this office or the Department. But, should 
no appeal be filed, the ex officio surveyor-general 
will proceed to direct the survey of the out- 
boundaries of the town site to be made, the same 
in all respects as above directed in the survey 
of land for trade and raanufacturing purposes, 
except that he will accept the report and recom- 
mendations made by said board and exclude and 
except, by metes and bounds, from the land so 
surveyed, all the lots and blocks for any pur- 
pose recommended to be excepted by said board. 
The execution of the survey of the lots and 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 245 

blocks thus excepted, shall be made a part of the 
duties of the surveyor who is deputized to survey 
the exterior lines of the town site; the survey 
of such lots or blocks shall be connected by 
course and distance with a corner of the town- 
site survey, and also fully described in the field- 
notes of said survey and protracted upon the 
plat of said town site; and the limits of such 
lots or blocks will be permanently marked upon 
the ground in such manner as the ex officio sur- 
veyor-general shall direct. In forwarding the 
plat and field-notes of the survey of any town 
site for the approval of this office, the ex officio 
surveyor-general will also forward any report 
that said board may have filed with him, for ap- 
proval in like manner. 

25. When the plat and field-notes of the sur- 
vey of the outboundaries of any town site shall 
have been approved, and not before, by this 
office, the Secretary of the Interior will appoint 
one trustee to make entry of the tract so sur- 
veyed, in trust for the occupants thereof, as pro- 
vided by said act. The trustee having received his 
appointment, and qualified himself for duty by 
takingand subscribingthe usual oath of office and 
executing the bond hereinafter required, will call 
upon the occupants of said town site for the trip- 
licate receipt for the money deposited to meet 
the expenses of the survey thereof, and for the 
requisite amount of money necessary in addition 
to pay the Government for the land as surveyed, 
and other expenses incident to the entry thereof, 
keeping an accurate account thereof and giving 
his receipt therefor. And when realized from as- 



246 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

sessment and allotment, he will refund the same, 
taking evidence thereof to be filed with his re- 
port in the manner hereinafter directed. He will 
then file with the United States Court Com- 
missioner for Sitka, who is ex officio reg- 
ister of the Sitka land office, a written 
notice, in due form, reciting the name of 
the party who will make the entry, the name 
and geographical location of the town site, the 
place and date of making proof, and the names 
of four witnesses by whom it is proposed to 
establish the right of entry. This notice will be 
published by said commissioner once a week 
for six consecutive weeks, at the appHcant's ex- 
pense, in a newspaper published in the town for 
which the entry is to be made, or nearest to the 
land applied for. Copies of said notice must also 
be posted in the office of the ex officio register 
and in a conspicuous place upon the land applied 
for, for thirty days next preceding the date of 
making proof. The required proof shall consist 
of the affidavits of the applicant and two of the 
published witnesses, and shall show: (i) the 
actual occupancy of the land for municipal pur- 
poses; (2) the number of inhabitants; (3) the 
character, extent, and value of town improve- 
ments; (4) the non-mineral character of the town 
site; (5) that said town site does not contain 
any land occupied by the United States for 
school or other public purposes, nor any land to 
which the title in fee was conferred under Rus- 
sian rule and confirmed by the treaty of transfer 
to the United States, nor any land for which 
patents have been issued by the United States; 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 347 

(6) and proof of the publication and posting of 
notices for the required time, the same in all re- 
spects as is required by the ninth subdivision of 
paragraph 20 hereof. The proof being accepted 
and the certificate of entry issued by the ex offi- 
cio register of the Sitka land office, the purchase 
price of the land should be paid to and receipted 
for by the clerk of the district court, who is ex 
officio receiver of the Sitka land office, after 
which all the papers will be forwarded to this 
office, and, if found to be complete and made in 
accordance with these instructions, patent will 
issue without delay. Cash certificate of entry 
(No. 4 — 189) will be used by the ex officio reg- 
ister in allowing all entries authorized by the 
law and these regulations, and said entries will 
be numbered consecutively beginning with num- 
ber one. A protest against the allowance of a 
town-site entry will be heard, and the same per- 
mitted to be carried into a contest, in the same 
manner and under the same conditions as here- 
inbefore provided in the matter of applications 
to make entries for the purposes of trade and 
manufactures. 

26. It is also made my duty to provide rules 
and regulations for the survey and platting of the 
town sites in Alaska into streets, alleys, blocks, 
and lots, or for the approval of such surveys as 
may already have been made by the inhabitants 
thereof, and for the conveyance of the lots and 
blocks to the occupants of said town sites, ac- 
cording to their respective interests. To accom- 
plish the latter provision necessitates the careful 
consideration of a somev/hat difficult problem, 



248 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

involving the right of the natives of Alaska, who 
constitute the larger part of the population of all 
the towns in said Territory, but who are not cit- 
izens of the United States, to receive title from 
the Government to the lots severally occupied 
and claimed by them. 

Although the political status of these people 
remains yet to be determined by legislation, still, 
the fact that they are held amenable to all the 
laws made applicable to said Territory in which 
they have lived at peace with the white settlers 
for ages, that they far outnumber the citizen and 
foreign-born population of all those towns in 
which white men have settled, and that many of 
them have invested their earnings in property in 
those towns and are exercising peaceable and 
undisputed occupancy and right of possession 
over the same, I therefore deem it proper, in 
order to further encourage them in adopting civ- 
ilized life and accepting and following the in- 
struction and example of the teachers, mission- 
aries, and all other right-thinking people who 
come among them, and equitable and just and 
within my power, to construe the language of 
section 2387, United States Revised Statutes, 
under which town-site entries are made ''in trust 
for the several use and benefit of the occupants 
thereof, according to their respective interests," 
in the most liberal and comprehensive sense, and 
to the advantage of these natives. Therefore, the 
trustees of the several town sites entered in said 
Territory shall levy assessments upon the prop- 
erty either occupied or possessed by any native 
Alaskan the same as if he were a white man, and 



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CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 249 

shall apportion and convey the same to him ac- 
cording to his respective interest, without regard 
to the question of citizenship. But, in case of 
white settlers, or associations or corporations, 
the trustees shall require the same evidence of 
citizenship or the right to hold real estate, as the 
case may be, as is required above of purchasers 
of land for purposes of trade or manufactures. 

2j. The entry having been made and for- 
warded to this office, the trustee will cause an 
actual survey of the lots, blocks, streets and 
alleys of the town site to be made, conforming 
as near as in his judgment it is deemed advisable 
to the original plan or survey of such town, mak- 
ing triplicate plats of said survey and designating 
upon each of said plats the lots occupied, to- 
gether with the value of the same and the name 
of the owner or owners thereof; and in like man- 
ner he will designate thereon the lots occupied 
by any corporation, religious organization, or 
private or sectarian school. When the plats are 
finally completed, they will be certified to by him 
as follows : 

"I, the undersigned, trustee of the town site of 
-, Alaska Territory, hereby certify that I 



have examined the survey of said town site and 
approved the foregoing plat thereof as strictly 
conformable to said survey made in accordance 
with the act of Congress approved March 3, 
1891, and my official instructions." 

One of said plats shall be filed in the land office 
in the district where the town site is located, 



250 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

one in the office of the Commissioner of the Gen- 
eral Land Office, and one retained for his own 
use. The designation of an owner on such plats 
shall be temporary until final decision of record 
in relation thereto, and shall in no case be taken 
or held as in any sense or to any degree a con- 
clusion or judgment by the trustee as to the true 
ownership in any contested case coming before 
him. 

28. As soon as said plats are completed, the 
trustee will then cause to be posted in three con- 
spicuous places in the town, a notice to the effect 
that such survey and platting have been com- 
pleted, and notifying all persons concerned or 
interested in such town site, that on a designated 
day he will proceed to set ofif to the persons en- 
titled to the same, according to their respective 
interests, the lots, blocks, or grounds to which 
each occupant thereof shall be entitled under the 
provisions of said act. Such notices shall be 
posted at least fifteen days prior to the day set 
apart by the trustee for making such division 
and allotment. Proof of such notification shall 
be evidenced by the affidavit of the trustee, ac- 
companied by a copy of such notice. 

29. After such notice shall have been duly 
given, the trustee will proceed on the designated 
day, except in contest cases, which shall be dis- 
posed of in the manner hereinafter provided, to 
set apart to the persons entitled to receive the 
same, the lots, blocks, and grounds to which 
each person, company, or association of persons 
shall be entitled, according to their respective 
interests, including in the portion or portions 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. ^51 

set apart to each person, corporation, or associa- 
tion of persons the improvements belonging 
thereto, and in so doing he will observe and fol- 
low as strictly as the platting of the town site will 
permit the rights of all parties to the property 
claimed by them as shown and defined by the 
records of the clerk of the District Court of 
Alaska, who is ex officio recorder of deeds and 
mortgages and other contracts relating to real 
estate in said Territory. 

30. After setting apart such lots, blocks, or 
parcels, and upon a valuation of the same as here- 
inbefore provided for, the trustee will proceed 
to determine and assess upon such lots and 
blocks according to their value, such rate and 
sum as will be necessary to pay all expenses in- 
cident to the town-site entry. In those cases in 
which there appears more than one claimant for 
any lot or block, the trustee will require each 
claimant to pay the assessment, and upon the 
final determination of the contest as hereinbe- 
fore provided for, the unsuccessful claimant or 
claimants will be reimbursed in a sum equal to 
the assessment paid by them, such reimburse- 
ments to be properly accounted for by the trus- 
tee. In making the assessments the trustee will 
take into consideration: 

First. The reimbursement of the parties who 
deposited the money to pay the costs of survey- 
ing and platting the outboundaries of the town 
site and who advanced such money as was nec- 
essary in addition to pay the purchase price of 
the land. 



252 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

Second. The money expended in advertising 
and making proof and entry of the town site. 

Third. The compensation of himself as trus- 
tee. 

Fourth. The expenses incident to making 
the conveyances. 

Fifth. All necessary traveling expenses and 
all other legitimate expenses incident to the ex- 
peditious execution of his trust. 

More than one assessment may be made, if 
necessary, to effect the purposes of said act of 
Congress and these instructions. Upon receipt 
of the assessments the trustee will issue deeds 
for the uncontested lots, blank forms of convey- 
ance being furnished by this office for that pur- 
pose. 

31. His work having been completed to this 
point, the trustee will then, and not before, in 
cases where he finds two or more inhabitants 
claiming the same lot, block, or parcel of land, 
proceed to hear and determine the controversy, 
fixing a time and place for the hearing of the re- 
spective claims of the interested parties, giving 
each ten days' notice thereof, and a fair oppor- 
tunity to present their interests in accordance 
with the principles of law and equity applicable 
to the case, observing as far as practicable the 
rules prescribed for contests before registers and 
receivers of the local offices; he will administer 
oaths to the witnesses, observe the rules of evi- 
dence as near as may be in making his investi- 
gations, and at the close of the case, or as soon 
thereafter as his duties will permit, render a de- 
cision in writing. If the notice herein provided 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 253 

for cannot be personally served upon the party 
therein named within three days from its date, 
such service may be made by a printed notice 
published for ten days in a newspaper in the 
town in which the lot to be affected thereby is 
situated; or, if there is none published in such 
town, then said notice may be printed in any 
newspaper published in the Territory. Copies 
of such notice should also be posted upon the lot 
in controversy and in at least three other con- 
spicuous places in the town wherein said lot is 
situated. The proof of such publication and 
posting of notices to be filed with the record, 
may be made as provided in these rules and reg- 
ulations in other cases. The proceedings in 
these contests should be abbreviated in time and 
words or the work may not be completed within 
the limits of any reasonable period of time or 
expense. 

Before proceeding to dispose of the contested 
cases the trustee will require each claimant to 
deposit with him each morning a sum sufficient 
to cover and pay all costs and expenses on such 
proceedings for that day. At the close of the 
contest, on appeal or otherwise, the sum depos- 
ited by the successful party shall be returned to 
him, but that deposited by the losing party shall 
be retained and accounted for by said trustee. 

32. Any person feeling aggrieved by the de- 
cision of the trustee may, within ten days after 
notice thereof, appeal to the Commissioner of the 
General Land (Dffice, under the rules (except as 
to time) as provided for appeals from the opin- 
ions of registers and receivers, and if either party 



254 ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 

is dissatisfied with the conclusions of said com- 
missioner in the case, he may still further prose- 
cute an appeal within ten days from notice there- 
of to the Secretary of the Interior, upon like 
terms and conditions and under the same rules 
that appeals are now regulated by and taken in 
adversary proceedings from the Commissioner 
to the Secretary, except as modified by the time 
within which the appeal is to be taken. All costs 
in such proceedings will be governed by the rules 
now applicable to contests before the local land 
offices. 

33. The trustee shall receive and pay out all 
money provided for in these instructions, subject 
to the supervision of this office, and he shall keep 
a correct record of his proceedings and an accu- 
rate account of all money received and disbursed 
by him, taking and filing proper vouchers there- 
for, in the manner hereinafter provided; and be- 
fore entering upon duty he shall, in addition to 
taking the official oath, also enter into a bond 
to the United States in the penal sum of five 
thousand dollars ($5,000), for the faithful dis- 
charge of his duties, both as now prescribed and 
furnished by the Department of the Interior. 

34. All lots remaining unoccupied and un- 
claimed when the trustee shall have made his al- 
lotments and assessments will be sold at public 
outcry, for cash, to the highest bidder. The pro- 
ceeds of such sales, together with any balance 
remaining in the hands of the trustee to the 
credit of the town-site occupants, to be expend- 
ed, under the direction of the Secretary of the 
Interior, for the benefit of the town. 



CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. 255 

35. All payments by the occupants of any 
town site for any of the purposes above named, 
except the survey of the outboundaries of the 
land so entered, shall be in cash, and made only 
to the trustee thereof, who shall make duplicate 
receipts for all money paid him, one to be given 
the party making the payment, and the other to 
be forwarded to this of^ce with the trustee's 
papers and accounts. Said trustee shall also take 
receipts for all money disbursed by him, and be 
held strictly accountable by this office, under his 
bond, for the proper handling of the trust funds 
in his possession. 

36. The trustee of any town site in said Ter- 
ritory will be allowed compensation at the rate 
of $5 per day for each day actually engaged and 
employed in the performance of his duties as such 
trustee, and his necessary traveling expenses. 

37. The trustee's duties herein prescribed 
having been completed, the account of all his ex- 
penses and expenditures, together with a record 
of his proceedings and a list of the lots to be 
sold at public sale, as hereinbefore provided, with 
all papers in his possession, and all evidence of 
his official acts, shall be transmitted to this office 
to become a part of the records hereof, excepting 
from such papers, however, the subdivisional plat 
of the town site, which he shall deliver to the 
clerk of the District Court, to be made of record 
and placed on file in his office as ex officio record- 
er of deeds, mortgages, and other contracts re- 
lating to real estate in the Territory of Alaska. 






ALASKA: ITS HISTORY, 



It will be observed that this law does not con- 
template, nor provide, for the survey and entry of 
lands for agricultural, horticultural or grazing 
purposes. It was enacted wholly in the interest 
of the salmon canning companies, who have 
sought to possess themselves of the exclusive 
ownership and control of all the best harbors and 
fishing grounds. They have been estopped from 
doing so, however, by a ruling of the Depart- 
ment, which limits entries under the act to the 
amount of land shown by the required proofs to 
be actually necessary to the business for which 
the lands may be occupied and claimed. 

The general mining laws of the United States 
are in full force and effect in Alaska, but there is 
no law under the provisions of which title to coal 
lands, or even the preferred right of purchase, 
can be secured. 



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